Ernesto Joselevich, who serves at the Weizmann Institute's Chemistry Faculty, and his team of researchers have developed an innovate method to grow comparatively longer and well aligned semiconductor nanowires.
This research will allow the manufacturing of semiconductor nanostructures with improved optical and electronic properties that are ideal for applications such as photovoltaics, computers, transistors, information storage media, lasers and LEDs.
The research team developed gallium nitride-made nanowires utilizing a process that normally creates vertical nanowires with superior electronic and optical properties. These vertical nanowires turn unruly only after the assembling of harvested nanowires into arrays.
To overcome this issue, the research team utilized sapphire with deliberate cuts along various planes of the crystal as a base to develop the nanowires. The cuts produce different surface designs such as nanoscale steps between the various planes of the crystal and V-shaped, accordion-like grooves.
The surface grooves and steps harness the nanowires to develop horizontally within the grooves or along their edges, resulting in the production of orderly arranged millimeter-long nanowire arrays. The research team has managed to couple, in one step, the production and assembly of orderly-structured nanowires with novel properties ideal for numerous applications. However, the study does not clarify the fact behind the production of horizontal nanowires using a method that usually creates vertical nanowires.
Joselevich stated that the research team was surprised when it determined that its nanowires have the same electronic and optical properties of that of vertically grown nanowires, as developing semiconductors on a surface normally brings in defects, which in turn reduces their quality.