Nanostructures of III-V semiconductor for photonic, electronic, and sensing applications back to basics

With the advancement of technology, the semiconductor materials are fabricated with ever shrinking size in order to reduce space and weight while at the same time benefiting from the improved performance such as high speed and low operating power. Recently found phenomena called, quantum confinement (QC) effects related to semiconductor material reaching the size in nanometer scale, only added to the excitement among researchers in this field around the world. Among notable effects of QC in nano-sized semiconductor is the enlargement of the bandgap due to the folding of the Brillouin zone. A few notable techniques that have been developed along this line are Metal Oxide Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD), Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE), and Liquid Phase Chemical Vapor Deposition to name but a few. However these machines are very expensive to operate especially for large scale production. This obstacle has prompted researchers to find other alternatives for cheaper production cost but trying to maintain the quality of the grown nanostructures for high performance devices. Those techniques are the ones which had been used before the QC effects are found. In this talk we are revisiting one of the low cost conventional techniques to grow high quality III-V nanostructure on Si substrate, that is electrochemical etching and deposition. This technique relies on the type of electrolyte, electrical current, temperature, time and ambient light. The quality of the grown layers is studied using SEM, PL, Raman and XRD Spectroscopy. The potential application of the grown layers in light emission, light detection, and gas sensing is also discussed.