AVS 59th Annual International Symposium and Exhibition
    Electron Transport at the Nanoscale Focus Topic Thursday Sessions
       Session ET+NS+EM-ThM

Paper ET+NS+EM-ThM12
Probing Surface-Independent Minority Carrier Transport in Semiconductor Nanowires using Kelvin Probe Microscopy

Thursday, November 1, 2012, 11:40 am, Room 16

Session: Electron Transport at the Nanoscale: Nanowires and Junctions
Presenter: A. Soudi, Washington State University
Authors: A. Soudi, Washington State University
C. Hsu, Washington State University
Y. Gu, Washington State University
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In advancing semiconductor nanowire-based device technologies, a quantitative knowledge of carrier transport properties is required for a rational design of devices with controlled performance. The one-dimensional confinement of charge carriers and phonons can lead to novel transport properties, and thus represents an advantage of semiconductor nanowires in electronic and opto-electronic applications. However, due to the high surface-to-volume ratio, surface effects are prevalent in nanowires, and the measured carrier transport properties are usually dominated by surface-related processes, such as carrier trapping and recombination processes facilitated by surface states. To evaluate the intrinsic transport properties, especially those related to the confinement effects, the capability to probe surface-independent carrier transport properties is desired. Here we present studies of bulk limited minority carrier transport properties in semiconductor nanowires using the scanning Kelvin probe microscopy technique. Specifically, by measuring and modeling the spatial variations of the nanowire surface potential close to a nanowire-metal Schottky junction, both under an above-bandgap illumination and in the dark, the surface-independent minority carrier diffusion length was obtained.