Guided Growth of Horizontal Core-Shell GaN-ZnTe Nanowires for LEDs

One-dimensional nanostructures such as nanowires (NWs) have attracted a lot of attention because they have great potential in nano-technological applications and scientific research. Our group developed a method to grow aligned NWs such that the crystallographic orientation and growth direction are dictated by epitaxial and grapho-epitaxial relations with the substrate. By now, our group succeeded to grow guided ZnO, ZnSe, ZnTe, CdSe and CdS NWs on sapphire and GaN on SiC, spinel and sapphire. The guided growth approach allows easy integration of semiconductor NWs into a variety of nano-devices such as transistors, photo-detectors and photovoltaic cells. This work relies on the synthetic processes of different semiconductor NWs developed in our group and concentrates on the fabrication of light-emitting diode (LED) devices. LEDs based on guided NWs possess interesting potential applications as nanoscopic light sources. Herein, we demonstrate the fabrication of LEDs based on guided NWs. The LED’s heterojunction is assembled by a core made of n-type GaN and a shell based on p-type ZnTe. Characterization of the devices using structural, compositional, optical and electrical measurements will be presented.