Growth and optical properties of axial hybrid III-V/Si nanowires

TL;DR

This paper reports the successful growth of axial hybrid silicon/III-V nanowires with high-quality gallium-arsenide segments, overcoming interface challenges, and enabling potential applications in quantum information technology.

Contribution

It demonstrates a method to integrate gallium-arsenide with silicon nanowires with dislocation-free interfaces, advancing hybrid nanowire fabrication.

Findings

Dislocation-free gallium-arsenide segments achieved in silicon nanowires.

Precise control of catalyst composition and surface chemistry.

Potential for quantum information devices using hybrid nanowires.

Abstract

Hybrid silicon nanowires with an integrated light-emitting segment can significantly advance nanoelectronics and nanophotonics. They would combine transport and optical characteristics in a nanoscale device, which can operate in the fundamental single-electron and single-photon regime. III-V materials, such as direct bandgap gallium-arsenide, are excellent candidates for such optical segments. However, interfacing them with silicon during crystal growth is a major challenge, because of the lattice mismatch, different expansion coefficients and the formation of anti-phase boundaries. Here, we demonstrate a silicon nanowire with an integrated gallium-arsenide segment. We precisely control the catalyst composition and surface chemistry to obtain dislocation-free interfaces. The integration of gallium-arsenide of high optical quality with silicon is enabled by short gallium phosphide buffers. We anticipate that such hybrid silicon/III-V nanowires open practical routes for quantum information devices, where for instance electronic and photonic quantum bits are manipulated in a III-V segment and stored in a silicon section.