Quasi van der Waals Epitaxial Growth of GaAsSb Nanowires on Graphitic Substrate for Photonic Applications

Abstract

III-V semiconductor nanowires are considered promising building blocks for advanced photonic devices. One of the key advantages is that the lattice mismatch can easily be accommodated in 1D structures, resulting in superior heteroepitaxial quality compared to thin films. However, few reports break the limitation of using bulk crystalline materials as substrates for epitaxial growth of high-quality photonic 1D components, making monolithic integration of III-V components on arbitrary substrates challenging. In this work, we show that the growth of self-catalyzed GaAsSb nanowires on graphitic substrates can be promoted by creating step edges of monolayer thickness on kish graphite before the growth. By further alternating the deposition sequence of the group-III element Al and the group-V elements As and Sb, it was found that triangular crystallites form when Al is deposited first. This indicates that the surface binding energy between the graphitic surface and the III-V nucleus profoundly influences the epitaxial growth of III-V materials on graphitic surfaces. Using the optimized growth recipe with an AlAsSb buffer nuclei, vertical [111]-oriented GaAsSb/GaAs nanowires with GaAsSb-based multiple axial superlattices were grown on exfoliated graphite, which was attached to a (001) AlAs/GaAs distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) using the simple Scotch tape method. Fabry-P\'{e}rot resonance modes were observed under optical excitation at room temperature, indicating a successful monolithic integration with optical feedback from the DBR system. These results demonstrate the great potential for flexible integration of high-efficiency III-V nanowire photonic devices on arbitrary photonic platforms using a 2D material buffer layer, e.g., graphene, without breaking the orientation registry.