Although various synthesis and characterization strategies have been employed for the synthesis of crystalline nanowires, there is very little work done on development of low-dimensional amorphous semiconductors. This paper presents a simple strategy to grow amorphous InSb (a-InSb) nanowires (NWs) in a chemical vapor deposition (CVD) system. The NWs were grown on Si substrate coated with indium film and the lack of crystallinity in the as-grown stoichiometric NWs was ascertained by Raman spectroscopy and electron transport measurements. A model proposed to explain the amorphous NW growth mechanism takes into account the fact that NW growth was carried out at the high temperature ramp-up rate of 75 ∘C/min. This high rate is believed to affect the growth kinematics and determine the arrangement of atoms in the growing NW. Raman spectrum of the as-grown sample shows a broad peak around 155 cm-1, indicative of the presence of high density of homopolar Sb-Sb bonds in the amorphous matrix. It was also found that high intensity laser light induces localized crystallization of the NW, most likely due to radiation-stimulated diffusion of defects in a-InSb. The nonlinear trend of the current-voltage characteristics for individually contacted a-InSb NWs was analyzed to prove that the non-linearity is not induced by Schottky contacts. At high bias fields, space charge limited conduction was the proposed electron transport mechanism. Post-growth annealing of the as-grown a-InSb NWs was found to be very effective in causing the NWs to undergo a phase transition from amorphous to crystalline.
Keywords: Raman spectroscopy; amorphous InSb nanowire; space-charge-limited current (SCLC).