Heterostructure axial GaAsSb ensemble near-infrared p–i–n based axial configured nanowire photodetectors

Abstract In this work, we present a systematic design of growth experiments and subsequent characterization of self-catalyzed molecular beam epitaxially grown GaAsSb heterostructure axial p–i–n nanowires (NWs) on p-Si <111> for the ensemble photodetector (PD) application in the near-infrared region. Diverse growth methods have been explored to gain a better insight into mitigating several growth challenges by systematically studying their impact on the NW electrical and optical properties to realize a high-quality p–i–n heterostructure. The successful growth approaches are Te-dopant compensation to suppress the p-type nature of intrinsic GaAsSb segment, growth interruption for strain relaxation at the interface, decreased substrate temperature to enhance supersaturation and minimize the reservoir effect, higher bandgap compositions of the n-segment of the heterostructure relative to the intrinsic region for boosting the absorption, and the high-temperature ultra-high vacuum in situ annealing to reduce the parasitic radial overgrowth. The efficacy of these methods is supported by enhanced photoluminescence (PL) emission, suppressed dark current in the heterostructure p–i–n NWs accompanied by increased rectification ratio, photosensitivity, and a reduced low-frequency noise level. The PD fabricated utilizing the optimized GaAsSb axial p–i–n NWs exhibited the longer wavelength cutoff at ∼1.1 μ m with a significantly higher responsivity of ∼120 A W −1 (@−3 V bias) and a detectivity of 1.1 × 10 13 Jones operating at room temperature. Frequency and the bias independent capacitance in the pico-Farad (pF) range and substantially lower noise level at the reverse biased condition, show the prospects of p–i–n GaAsSb NWs PD for high-speed optoelectronic applications.