title: Strain-induced pseudoheterostructure nanowires confining carriers at room temperature with nanoscale-tunable band profiles.
abstract: Semiconductor heterostructures play a vital role in photonics and electronics. They are typically realized by growing layers of different materials, complicating fabrication and limiting the number of unique heterojunctions on a wafer. In this Letter, we present single-material nanowires which behave exactly like traditional heterostructures. These pseudoheterostructures have electronic band profiles that are custom-designed at the nanoscale by strain engineering. Since the band profile depends only on the nanowire geometry with this approach, arbitrary band profiles can be individually tailored at the nanoscale using existing nanolithography. We report the first experimental observations of spatially confined, greatly enhanced (>200×), and wavelength-shifted (>500 nm) emission from strain-induced potential wells that facilitate effective carrier collection at room temperature. This work represents a fundamentally new paradigm for creating nanoscale devices with full heterostructure behavior in photonics and electronics.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering and ‡Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University , Stanford, California 94305, United States.
authors.forename: Donguk
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Nam
authors.forename: David S
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Sukhdeo
authors.forename: Ju-Hyung
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Kang
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Petykiewicz
authors.forename: Jae Hyung
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Woo Shik
authors.initials: WS
authors.lastname: Jung
authors.forename: Jelena
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Vučković
authors.forename: Mark L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Brongersma
authors.forename: Krishna C
authors.initials: KC
authors.lastname: Saraswat