The Role of polarity in nonplanar semiconductor nanostructures

The lack of mirror symmetry in binary semiconductor compounds turns them into polar materials, where two opposite orientations of the same crystallographic direction are possible. Interestingly, their physical properties (e.g., electronic or photonic) and morphological features (e.g., shape, growth...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: De La Mata, Maria|||0000-0002-1581-4838, Zamani, Reza|||0000-0001-6940-0000, Martí-Sánchez, Sara|||0000-0003-4283-1489, Eickhoff, Martin, Xiong, Qihua|||0000-0002-2555-4363, Fontcuberta i Morral, Anna|||0000-0002-5070-2196, Caroff, Philippe, Arbiol i Cobos, Jordi|||0000-0002-0695-1726
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2019
País:España
Institución:Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Repositorio:Dipòsit Digital de Documents de la UAB
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:ddd.uab.cat:215018
Acceso en línea:https://ddd.uab.cat/record/215018
https://dx.doi.org/urn:doi:10.1021/acs.nanolett.9b00459
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Polarity
Semiconductor
III-V
II-VI
Growth mechanisms
Nanostructures
Nanowires
Descripción
Sumario:The lack of mirror symmetry in binary semiconductor compounds turns them into polar materials, where two opposite orientations of the same crystallographic direction are possible. Interestingly, their physical properties (e.g., electronic or photonic) and morphological features (e.g., shape, growth direction, and so forth) also strongly depend on the polarity. It has been observed that nanoscale materials tend to grow with a specific polarity, which can eventually be reversed for very specific growth conditions. In addition, polar-directed growth affects the defect density and topology and might induce eventually the formation of undesirable polarity inversion domains in the nanostructure, which in turn will affect the photonic and electronic final device performance. Here, we present a review on the polarity-driven growth mechanism at the nanoscale, combining our latest investigation with an overview of the available literature highlighting suitable future possibilities of polarity engineering of semiconductor nanostructures. The present study has been extended over a wide range of semiconductor compounds, covering the most commonly synthesized III-V (GaN, GaP, GaAs, GaSb, InN, InP, InAs, InSb) and II-VI (ZnO, ZnTe, CdS, CdSe, CdTe) nanowires and other free-standing nanostructures (tripods, tetrapods, belts, and membranes). This systematic study allowed us to explore the parameters that may induce polarity-dependent and polarity-driven growth mechanisms, as well as the polarity-related consequences on the physical properties of the nanostructures.