Direct growth of compound semiconductor nanowires by on-film formation of nanowires: bismuth telluride.
Bismuth telluride (Bi(2)Te(3)) nanowires are of great interest as nanoscale building blocks for high-efficiency thermoelectric devices. Their low-dimensional character leads to an enhanced figure-of-merit (ZT), an indicator of thermoelectric efficiency. Herein, we report the invention of a direct growth method termed On-Film Formation of Nanowires (OFF-ON) for making high-quality single-crystal compound semiconductor nanowires, that is, Bi(2)Te(3), without the use of conventional templates, catalysts, or starting materials. We have used the OFF-ON technique to grow single crystal compound semiconductor Bi(2)Te(3) nanowires from sputtered BiTe films after thermal annealing at 350 degrees C. The mechanism for wire growth is stress-induced mass flow along grain boundaries in the polycrystalline film. OFF-ON is a simple but powerful method for growing perfect single-crystal compound semiconductor nanowires of high aspect ratio with high crystallinity that distinguishes it from other competitive growth approaches that have been developed to date.
Ham
Jinhee
J
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Yonsei University, 134 Shinchon, Seoul 120-749, Korea, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul 151-744, Korea, and Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208.
Shim
Wooyoung
W
Kim
Do Hyun
DH
Lee
Seunghyun
S
Roh
Jongwook
J
Sohn
Sung Woo
SW
Oh
Kyu Hwan
KH
Voorhees
Peter W
PW
Lee
Wooyoung
W