Gold Electrodeposition in Semiconductor Nanowire Technology

Sammanfattning: Semiconductor nanowires are widely considered as promising candidates for next generations of electronics and optoelectronics. Gold seed particles have so far been recognized as the most important catalyst for growth of nanowires. Costs related to substrates, lithography processes and gold consumption most strongly influence the final cost of nanowire-based devices. An optimum gold deposition process can facilitate re-use of substrates, avoid repetitive lithogra-phy processes and reduce the gold consumption in order to reduce the cost of the final device. In this work, we report on nanowire seed definition by gold electrodeposition. Electron microscopy inspection and optical spectroscopy confirm that the subsequently grown III-V nanowires have surface morphology and crystal quality comparable to those of nanowires grown from seed particles defined by conventional thermal evaporation. For seeding of substrates used in a typical growth run, we used around 650 times less gold with a 10 times higher throughput as compared to thermal evaporation. Using selective gold electrodeposition, we demonstrated redeposition of seed particles on a substrate after nanowire peel-off in order to reuse it for multiple growth runs. We also demonstrated the possibility of depositing seed particles in deep holes etched in thick masks to facilitate template-assisted growth of nanowires on (001) substrates.