Comparison of laser-ablation and hot-wall chemical vapour deposition techniques for nanowire fabrication

A comparison of the transport properties of populations of single-crystal, In2O3 nanowires (NWs) grown by unassisted hot-wall chemical vapour deposition (CVD) versus NWs grown by laser-ablation-assisted chemical vapour deposition (LA-CVD) is presented. For nominally identical growth conditions across the two systems, NWs fabricated at 850 ◦C with laser-ablation had significantly higher average mobilities at the 99.9% confidence level, 53.3 ± 5.8 cm2 V−1 s−1 versus 10.2 ± 1.9 cm2 V−1 s−1. It is also observed that increasing growth temperature decreases mobility for LA-CVD NWs. Transmission electron microscopy studies of CVD-fabricated samples indicate the presence of an amorphous In2O3 region surrounding the single-crystal core. Further, low-temperature measurements verify the presence of ionized impurity scattering in low-mobility CVD-grown NWs.