Method of preparing a substrate for nanowire growth, and a method of fabricating an array of semiconductor nanostructures
AssigneesUCL Business PLC, GASP Solar APS
InventorsMartin Aagesen, Yunyan Zhang, Jiang Wu, Huiyun Liu
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Abstract
The present invention provides a reproducible preliminary in-situ oxide removal step for patterned self-assisted III-V semiconductor nanowire growth. Here “in-situ” means located within the same treatment environment or apparatus as the nanowire growth process, e.g. with a molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) apparatus or the like. Providing an in-situ process may prevent the formation of a thin oxide layer during transfer of the substrate into the nanowire growth apparatus.
Claims21
A method of preparing a substrate to support self-catalysed nanostructure growth, the method comprising:
- forming an array of holes in a treatment surface of a substrate;
- transferring the substrate into a nanostructure growth apparatus;
- and
- before beginning self-catalysed nanostructure growth, heating the substrate to selectively remove native oxide from the base of each hole in the array of holes.
A semiconductor device comprising:
- a substrate;
- a masking layer on a top surface of the substrate;
- and
- a plurality of self-catalysed III-V semiconductor nanowires projecting from the masking layer,
- wherein each self-catalysed III-V semiconductor nanowire:
- extends through a respective hole formed in the masking layer,
- has a base in contact with the substrate, and
- has a height that is at least five times greater than the diameter of its respective hole, and
- wherein each hole is completely filled by its respective self-catalysed III-V semiconductor nanowire.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.