A generic process has been developed to grow nearly defect-free arrays of (heterostructured) InP and GaP nanowires. Soft nano-imprint lithography has been used to pattern gold particle arrays on full 2 inch substrates. After lift-off organic residues remain on the surface, which induce the growth of additional undesired nanowires. We show that cleaning of the samples before growth with piranha solution in combination with a thermal anneal at 550 ◦C for InP and 700 ◦C for GaP results in uniform nanowire arrays with 1% variation in nanowire length, and without undesired extra nanowires. Our chemical cleaning procedure is applicable to other lithographic techniques such as e-beam lithography, and therefore represents a generic process.

doi.org/10.1088/0957-4484/21/6/065305
Nanotechnology

Pierret, A., Hocevar, M., Diedenhofen, S. L., Algra, R., Vlieg, E., Timmering, E. C., … Bakkers, E. (2010). Generic nano-imprint process for fabrication of nanowire arrays. Nanotechnology, 21(Article number: 65305), 1–7. doi:10.1088/0957-4484/21/6/065305