Electronic transport mechanism and photocurrent generations of single-crystalline InN nanowires

Abstract

Nanodevices using individual indium nitride nanowires are fabricated by e-beam lithography. The nanowires have diameters of 40-80 nm, lengths up to several tens of micrometres and single-crystalline nature. We observed ohmic I-V behaviour of InN nanowires above nearly 100 K, which is consistent with the pinning Fermi level of the metal electrode near the conduction band edge of InN nanowire. At low temperatures, the device shows typical semiconductor behaviour along with a quantum tunnelling effect through the Schottky barrier rather than thermally activated transport. The activation energy calculated above and below 80 K is 28.2 and 5.08 meV, respectively. We have also fabricated a photocurrent generation device using InN nanowires. The photocurrent of an acceptor-sensitizer dyad with di-(3-aminopropyl)-viologen ( DAPV) and a Ru complex on an InN nanowires/ITO plate was 8.3 nA cm(-2), which increased by 62.7% compared to that without InN nanowire layers.