High-Responsivity Photodetection by a Self-Catalyzed Phase-Pure p-GaAs Nanowire

Hassan Ali; Yunyan Zhang; Jing Tang; Kai Peng; Sibai Sun; Yue Sun; Feilong Song; Attia Falak; Shiyao Wu; Chenjiang Qian; Meng Wang; Zhanchun Zuo; Kui-Juan Jin; Ana M Sanchez; Huiyun Liu; Xiulai Xu

doi:10.1002/smll.201704429

High-Responsivity Photodetection by a Self-Catalyzed Phase-Pure p-GaAs Nanowire

Small. 2018 Apr;14(17):e1704429. doi: 10.1002/smll.201704429. Epub 2018 Apr 3.

Authors

Hassan Ali^{1

2}, Yunyan Zhang³, Jing Tang¹, Kai Peng¹, Sibai Sun¹, Yue Sun¹, Feilong Song¹, Attia Falak^{4

5}, Shiyao Wu¹, Chenjiang Qian¹, Meng Wang¹, Zhanchun Zuo¹, Kui-Juan Jin^{1

2}, Ana M Sanchez⁶, Huiyun Liu³, Xiulai Xu^{1

2

7}

Affiliations

¹ Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China.
² School of Physical Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China.
³ Department of Electronics and Electrical Engineering, University College London, London, WC1E 7JE, UK.
⁴ National Centre for Nanoscience and Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China.
⁵ Department of Physics, University of the Punjab, Quaid-e-Azam Campus, Lahore, 54000, Pakistan.
⁶ Department of Physics, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK.
⁷ CAS Center for Excellence in Topological Quantum Computation, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China.

PMID: 29611286
DOI: 10.1002/smll.201704429

Abstract

Defects are detrimental for optoelectronics devices, such as stacking faults can form carrier-transportation barriers, and foreign impurities (Au) with deep-energy levels can form carrier traps and nonradiative recombination centers. Here, self-catalyzed p-type GaAs nanowires (NWs) with a pure zinc blende (ZB) structure are first developed, and then a photodetector made from these NWs is fabricated. Due to the absence of stacking faults and suppression of large amount of defects with deep energy levels, the photodetector exhibits room-temperature high photoresponsivity of 1.45 × 10⁵ A W^-1 and excellent specific detectivity (D*) up to 1.48 × 10¹⁴ Jones for a low-intensity light signal of wavelength 632.8 nm, which outperforms previously reported NW-based photodetectors. These results demonstrate these self-catalyzed pure-ZB GaAs NWs to be promising candidates for optoelectronics applications.

Keywords: GaAs nanowires; phase-pure crystal structures; photodetectors; photoresponsivity; self-catalyzed growth.