Long-Term Stability and Optoelectronic Performance Enhancement of InAsP Nanowires with an Ultrathin InP Passivation Layer

Overview

Journal Nano Lett

Publisher American Chemical Society

Specialty Biotechnology

Date 2022 Apr 14

PMID 35420433

Authors

Lulu Chen

Stephanie O Adeyemo

H Aruni Fonseka

Huiyun Liu

Srabani Kar

Hui Yang

Anton Velichko

David J Mowbray

Zhiyuan Cheng

Ana M Sanchez

Hannah J Joyce

Yunyan Zhang

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The influence of nanowire (NW) surface states increases rapidly with the reduction of diameter and hence severely degrades the optoelectronic performance of narrow-diameter NWs. Surface passivation is therefore critical, but it is challenging to achieve long-term effective passivation without significantly affecting other qualities. Here, we demonstrate that an ultrathin InP passivation layer of 2-3 nm can effectively solve these challenges. For InAsP nanowires with small diameters of 30-40 nm, the ultrathin passivation layer reduces the surface recombination velocity by at least 70% and increases the charge carrier lifetime by a factor of 3. These improvements are maintained even after storing the samples in ambient atmosphere for over 3 years. This passivation also greatly improves the performance thermal tolerance of these thin NWs and extends their operating temperature from <150 K to room temperature. This study provides a new route toward high-performance room-temperature narrow-diameter NW devices with long-term stability.

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