Perovskite oxide nanowires: synthesis, property and structural characterization

Perovskite oxide materials display a wide spectrum of functional properties, including switchable polarization, piezoelectricity, pyroelectricity, and non-linear dielectric behavior. These properties are indispensable for application in electronic devices such as non-volatile memories, sensors, microactuators, infrared detectors, microwave phase filters, and so on. Recent advances in science and technology of perovskite oxide materials have resulted in the feature sizes of perovskite oxides-based electronic devices entering into nanoscale dimensions. At nanoscale perovskite oxide materials exhibit a pronounced size effect manifesting itself in a significant deviation of the properties of low-dimensional structures from the bulk and film counterparts. In the last decade low-dimensional perovskite nanosized oxides have been received much attention because of their superior physical and chemical properties. Among them, perovskite oxide nanowires are especially attractive for nanoscience studies and nanotechnology applications. Compared to other low-dimensional perovskite oxide systems, perovskite oxide nanowires are not only used as the building blocks of future nanodevices, but also they offer fundamental scientific opportunities for investigating the intrinsic size effects of physical properties. In the recent years, much progress has been made both in synthesis and physical property testing of perovskite oxide nanowires, which have a profound impact on the nanoelectronics. In this work, an overview of the state of art in perovskite oxide nanowires is presented, which covers their synthesis, property, and structural characterization. In the first part, the recent literatures for fabricating perovskite oxide nanowires with promising features, are critically reviewed. The second part deals with the recent advances on the physical property testing of perovskite oxide nanowires. The third part summarizes the recent progress on microstructural characterizations of perovskite oxide nanowires, to improve their crystalline quality, morphology and uniformity. Finally, this review concludes with some perspectives and outlook on the future developments of perovskite oxide nanowires.     

Nanowires: properties,applications and synthesis via porous anodic aluminium oxide template

Quasi one-dimensional nanowires possess unique electrical, electronic, thermoelectrical, optical, magnetic and chemical properties, which are different from that of their parent counterpart. The physical properties of nanowires are influenced by the morphology of the nanowires, diameter dependent band gap, carrier density of states etc. Nanowires hold lot of promises for different applications. Basic electronic devices like junction diodes, transistors, FETs and logic gates can be fabricated by using semiconductor and superlattice nanowires. Thermoelectric cooling system can be fabricated by using metallic nanowires. Semiconductor nanowire junctions can be used for different opto-electronic applications. Moreover, periodic arrays of magnetic nanowires hold high potential for recording media application. Nanowires are also potential candidates for sensor and bio-medical applications. In the present article, the physical and chemical properties of nanowires along with their probable applications in different fields have been reviewed in detail. The review also includes highlights of the synthesis of nanowires via porous anodic aluminium oxide template since the technique is simple, cost-effective and a low temperature technique.     

Energetics and electronic structures of AlN nanotubes/wires and their potential application as ammonia sensors

Aluminium nitride (AlN) one-dimensional (1D) nanostructures, including crystalline nanowires, faceted nanotubes and conventional single-walled nanotubes, were investigated by means of density functional theory (DFT) using the generalized gradient approximation (GGA). While the larger diameter crystalline nanowires are the most favoured energetically of all these 1D nanostructures, the thick faceted nanotubes have comparable binding energies and can be obtained experimentally. The single-walled nanotubes have the lowest binding energies, and are less feasible experimentally. Due to the surface states at the band edges, the band gaps of all the AlN 1D nanostructures are much smaller than that of bulk AlN. The band structures of AlN nanowires can be modified by NH(3) adsorption. Consequently AlN nanowires have potential applications as gas sensors, since their electronic structures are very sensitive to NH(3) adsorption.     

TaSi2 nanowires: A potential field emitter and interconnect

TaSi2 nanowires have been synthesized on a Si substrate by annealing NiSi2 films at 950 degrees C in an ambient containing Ta vapor. The nanowires could be grown up to 13 microm in length. Field-emission measurements show that the turn-on field is low at 4-4.5 V/microm and the threshold field is down to 6 V/microm with the field enhancement factor as high as 1800. The metallic TaSi2 nanowires exhibit excellent electrical properties with a remarkable high failure current density of 3 x 10(8) A cm(-2). In addition, effects of annealing temperatures and capability of metal silicide mediation layer on the growth of nanowires are addressed. This simple approach promises future applications in nanoelectronics and nano-optoelectronics.     

Template-Directed, Near-Ambient Synthesis of Au-TiO2-Au Heterojunction Nanowires Mediated by Self-Assembled Monolayers (SAMs)

The feasibility of synthesizing metal-oxide-metal (MOM) heterojunction nanowires in the Au-TiO₂-Au system is demonstrated. The synthesis method presented here entails sequential metal-electroplating and SAMs-mediated deposition of oxide from liquid precursors, inside nanoholes of anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) templates. This synthesis method could be used to synthesize MOM nanowires in other systems, and it has the potential to provide control over the structure and characteristics of the resulting MOM nanowires. The heterojunction nature of the MOM nanowires has several potential advantages over all-oxide nanowires, and MOM nanowires are likely to be useful as 1-dimensional building blocks in nanoelectronics applications, and in fundamental studies of nanoscale functional oxides.     

Dopant-free GaN/AlN/AlGaN radial nanowire heterostructures as high electron mobility transistors

We report the rational synthesis of dopant-free GaN/AlN/AlGaN radial nanowire heterostructures and their implementation as high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs). The radial nanowire heterostructures were prepared by sequential shell growth immediately following nanowire elongation using metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD). Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) studies reveal that the GaN/AlN/AlGaN radial nanowire heterostructures are dislocation-free single crystals. In addition, the thicknesses and compositions of the individual AlN and AlGaN shells were unambiguously identified using cross-sectional high-angle annular darkfield scanning transmission electron microscopy (HAADF-STEM). Transport measurements carried out on GaN/AlN/AlGaN and GaN nanowires prepared using similar conditions demonstrate the existence of electron gas in the undoped GaN/AlN/AlGaN nanowire heterostructures and also yield an intrinsic electron mobility of 3100 cm(2)/Vs and 21,000 cm(2)/Vs at room temperature and 5 K, respectively, for the heterostructure. Field-effect transistors fabricated with ZrO(2) dielectrics and metal top gates showed excellent gate coupling with near ideal subthreshold slopes of 68 mV/dec, an on/off current ratio of 10(7), and scaled on-current and transconductance values of 500 mA/mm and 420 mS/mm. The ability to control synthetically the electronic properties of nanowires using band structure design in III-nitride radial nanowire heterostructures opens up new opportunities for nanoelectronics and provides a new platform to study the physics of low-dimensional electron gases.     

Electrical properties of self-assembled branched InAs nanowire junctions

We investigate electrical properties of self-assembled branched InAs nanowires. The branched nanowires are catalytically grown using chemical beam epitaxy, and three-terminal nanoelectronic devices are fabricated from the branched nanowires using electron-beam lithography. We demonstrate that, in difference from conventional macroscopic junctions, the fabricated self-assembled nanowire junction devices exhibit tunable nonlinear electrical characteristics and a signature of ballistic electron transport. As an example of applications, we demonstrate that the self-assembled three-terminal nanowire junctions can be used to implement the functions of frequency mixing, multiplication, and phase-difference detection of input electrical signals at room temperature. Our results suggest a wide range of potential applications of branched semiconductor nanostructures in nanoelectronics.     

纳米线研究进展

一维纳米结构如纳米线和纳米管,不仅在基础理论研究方面对于探索材料的维数和尺寸对其光学、电学和力学等性质的影响有很大的研究价值,而且其实际应用涉及领域十分广泛,如探针显微镜的针尖,纳米电子器件的连接等.本文评述纳米线研究的最新进展,着重介绍了不同类型纳米线的合成制备方法及其可能的应用领域,并对纳米线的研究趋势作了展望.     

The Piezotronic Effect of Zinc Oxide Nanowires Studied by In Situ TEM

Piezotronics is a new field integrating piezoelectric effect into nanoelectronics, which has attracted much attention for the fundamental research and potential applications. In this paper, the piezotronic effect of zinc oxide (ZnO) nanowires, including the response of the electrical transport and photoconducting behaviors on the nanowire bending, has been investigated by in situ transmission electron microscopy (TEM), where the crystal structure of ZnO nanowires were simultaneously imaged. Serials of consecutively recorded current‐voltage (I–V) curves along with an increase of nanowire bending show the striking effect of bending on their electrical behavior. With increasing the nanowire bending, the photocurrent of ZnO nanowire under ultraviolet illumination (UV) drops dramatically and the photo response time becomes much shorter. In addition, the dynamic nanomechanics of ZnO nanowires were studied inside TEM. These phenomena could be attributed to the piezoelectric effect of ZnO nanowires, and they suggest the potential applications of ZnO nanowires on piezotronic devices.     

Polarity assignment in ZnTe, GaAs, ZnO, and GaN-AlN nanowires from direct dumbbell analysis

Aberration corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) with high angle annular dark field (HAADF) imaging and the newly developed annular bright field (ABF) imaging are used to define a new guideline for the polarity determination of semiconductor nanowires (NWs) from binary compounds in two extreme cases: (i) when the dumbbell is formed with atoms of similar mass (GaAs) and (ii) in the case where one of the atoms is extremely light (N or O: ZnO and GaN/AlN). The theoretical fundaments of these procedures allow us to overcome the main challenge in the identification of dumbbell polarity. It resides in the separation and identification of the constituent atoms in the dumbbells. The proposed experimental via opens new routes for the fine characterization of nanostructures, e.g., in electronic and optoelectronic fields, where the polarity is crucial for the understanding of their physical properties (optical and electronic) as well as their growth mechanisms.     

Polarization-induced pn diodes in wide-band-gap nanowires with ultraviolet electroluminescence

Almost all electronic devices utilize a pn junction formed by random doping of donor and acceptor impurity atoms. We developed a fundamentally new type of pn junction not formed by impurity-doping, but rather by grading the composition of a semiconductor nanowire resulting in alternating p and n conducting regions due to polarization charge. By linearly grading AlGaN nanowires from 0% to 100% and back to 0% Al, we show the formation of a polarization-induced pn junction even in the absence of any impurity doping. Since electrons and holes are injected from AlN barriers into quantum disk active regions, graded nanowires allow deep ultraviolet LEDs across the AlGaN band-gap range with electroluminescence observed from 3.4 to 5 eV. Polarization-induced p-type conductivity in nanowires is shown to be possible even without supplemental acceptor doping, demonstrating the advantage of polarization engineering in nanowires compared with planar films and providing a strategy for improving conductivity in wide-band-gap semiconductors. As polarization charge is uniform within each unit cell, polarization-induced conductivity without impurity doping provides a solution to the problem of conductivity uniformity in nanowires and nanoelectronics and opens a new field of polarization engineering in nanostructures that may be applied to other polar semiconductors.     

Nanoscale Correlations between Metal–Insulator Transition and Resistive Switching Effect in Metallic Perovskite Oxides

Strongly correlated perovskite oxides are a class of materials with fascinating intrinsic physical functionalities due to the interplay of charge, spin, orbital ordering, and lattice degrees of freedom. Among the exotic phenomena arising from such an interplay, metal–insulator transitions (MITs) are fundamentally still not fully understood and are of large interest for novel nanoelectronics applications, such as resistive switching‐based memories and neuromorphic computing devices. In particular, rare‐earth nickelates and lanthanum strontium manganites are archetypical examples of bandwidth‐controlled and band‐filling‐controlled MIT, respectively, which are used in this work as a playground to correlate the switching characteristics of the oxides and their MIT properties by means of local probe techniques in a systematic manner. These findings suggest that an electric‐field‐induced MIT can be triggered in these strongly correlated systems upon generation of oxygen vacancies and establish that lower operational voltages and larger resistance ratios are obtained in those films where the MIT lies closer to room temperature. This work demonstrates the potential of using MITs in the next generation of nanoelectronics devices.     

Electrical properties and applications of carbon nanotube structures

The experimentally verified electrical properties of carbon nanotube structures and manifestations in related phenomena such as thermoelectricity, superconductivity, electroluminescence, and photoconductivity are reviewed. The possibility of using naturally formed complex nanotube morphologies, such as Y-junctions, for new device architectures are then considered. Technological applications of the electrical properties of nanotube derived structures in transistor applications, high frequency nanoelectronics, field emission, and biological sensing are then outlined. The review concludes with an outlook on the technological potential of nanotubes and the need for new device architectures for nanotube systems integration.     

Growth of high-density titanium silicide nanowires in a single direction on a silicon surface

Understanding the growth mechanisms of nanowires is essential for their successful implementation in advanced devices applications. In situ ultrahigh-vacuum transmission electron microscopy has been applied to elucidate the interaction mechanisms of titanium disilicide nanowires (TiSi2 NWs) on Si(111) substrate. Two phenomena were observed: merging of the two NWs in the same direction, and collapse of one NW on a competing NW in a different direction when they meet at the ends. On the other hand, as one NW encounters the midsection of the other NW in a different direction, it recedes in favor of bulging of the other NW at the midsection. Since crystallographically the nanowires are favored to grow on Si(110) only in the [1 -1 0] direction, this crucial information has been fruitfully exploited to focus on the growth of a high density of long and high-aspect-ratio Ti silicide NWs parallel to the surface on Si(110) in a single direction. The achievement in growth of high-density NWs in a single direction represents a significant advance in realizing the vast potential for applications of silicide NWs in nanoelectronics devices.     

贵金属纳米线的模板法制备及应用研究进展

贵金属纳米线因独特的光学性质吸引了人们的普遍关注,已经被广泛应用于生物传感器、太阳能电池、纳米尺度光电器件领域。其光学性能主要来源于贵金属表面的区域等离子体共振,而区域等离子体共振主要由金属纳米线的形状、尺寸、组成以及电磁常数决定。简要地回顾了模板法合成贵金属纳米线的方法,讨论了影响纳米线光学性质的因素,最后简述了应用前景。     

Synthesis,Characterizations and Applications of Cadmium Chalcogenide Nanowires:A Review

Cadmium chalcogenide nanowires have demonstrated superior electrical and optical properties,and have emerged as prominent building blocks for nanoscale electronic and optoelectronic devices.In addition to the effort devoted to advance techniques of fabricating high quality nanowires,much has been endeavored to elucidate their unique physical properties for better design and development of functional devices with low power consumption and high performance.Herein,this article provides a comprehensive review of the forefront research on cadmium chalcogenide nanowires,ranging from material synthesis,property characterizations,and device applications.     

Enhanced absorption in silicon nanocone arrays for photovoltaics

Silicon nanowire arrays have been shown to demonstrate light trapping properties and promising potential for next-generation photovoltaics. In this paper, we performed systematic and detailed simulation studies on the optical properties of silicon nanocone arrays as compared to nanowires arrays. Nanocone arrays were found to have significantly improved solar absorption and efficiencies over nanowire arrays. Detailed simulations revealed that nanocones have superior absorption due to reduced reflection from their smaller tip and reduced transmission from their larger base. The enhanced efficiencies of silicon nanocone arrays were found to be insensitive to tip diameter, which should facilitate their fabrication. Breaking the vertical mirror symmetry of nanowires results in a broader absorption spectrum such that overall efficiencies are enhanced. We also evaluated the electric field intensity, carrier generation and angle-dependent optical properties of nanocones and nanowires to offer further physical insight into their light trapping properties.     

Formation of chiral branched nanowires by the Eshelby Twist

Manipulating the morphology of inorganic nanostructures, such as their chirality and branching structure, has been actively pursued as a means of controlling their electrical, optical and mechanical properties. Notable examples of chiral inorganic nanostructures include carbon nanotubes, gold multishell nanowires, mesoporous nanowires and helical nanowires. Branched nanostructures have also been studied and been shown to have interesting properties for energy harvesting and nanoelectronics. Combining both chiral and branching motifs into nanostructures might provide new materials properties. Here we show a chiral branched PbSe nanowire structure, which is formed by a vapour-liquid-solid branching from a central nanowire with an axial screw dislocation. The chirality is caused by the elastic strain of the axial screw dislocation, which produces a corresponding Eshelby Twist in the nanowires. In addition to opening up new opportunities for tailoring the properties of nanomaterials, these chiral branched nanowires also provide a direct visualization of the Eshelby Twist.     

On the formation of voids, etched holes, and GaO particles configuration during the nanowires growth by VLS method on GaAs substrate

The nanowires grown on GaAs semiconductor substrate play very important roles in nanoelectronics, optoelectronics, and sensors. The nanowires can be produced by many methods among the existing methods of nanowires growth on GaAs semiconductor, the vapor–liquid–solid (VLS) method appears to be simple, low cost, and popular. However, this method in practice requires further investigations concerning the growth mechanisms, size effects, and the role of Au catalyst metal diffusion, as well as the effect of technological conditions. Several undesired phenomena, which strongly influence the morphologies, features, and applications of the grown nanowires, can occur as the result of using thick Au catalyst layers, high growth temperatures, and/or small vapor volume in the closed ampoule. This paper aims to examine simultaneous formation of voids, etched holes, and GaO particles along with the nanowires grown by VLS method on GaAs substrate. As the result, typical technological conditions for the nanowires growth with better characterizations are proposed.     

Supercurrent and multiple Andreev reflections in an InSb nanowire Josephson junction

Epitaxially grown, high quality semiconductor InSb nanowires are emerging material systems for the development of high performance nanoelectronics and quantum information processing and communication devices and for the studies of new physical phenomena in solid state systems. Here, we report on measurements of a superconductor-normal conductor-superconductor junction device fabricated from an InSb nanowire with aluminum-based superconducting contacts. The measurements show a proximity-induced supercurrent flowing through the InSb nanowire segment with a critical current tunable by a gate in the current bias configuration and multiple Andreev reflection characteristics in the voltage bias configuration. The temperature dependence and the magnetic field dependence of the critical current and the multiple Andreev reflection characteristics of the junction are also studied. Furthermore, we extract the excess current from the measurements and study its temperature and magnetic field dependences. The successful observation of the superconductivity in the InSb nanowire-based Josephson junction device indicates that InSb nanowires provide an excellent material system for creating and observing novel physical phenomena such as Majorana fermions in solid-state systems.