Growth and optical properties of axial hybrid III–V/silicon nanowires

Hybrid silicon nanowires with an integrated light-emitting segment can significantly advance nanoelectronics and nanophotonics. They would combine transport and optical characteristics in a nanoscale device, which can operate in the fundamental single-electron and single-photon regime. III–V materials, such as direct bandgap gallium arsenide, are excellent candidates for such optical segments. However, interfacing them with silicon during crystal growth is a major challenge, because of the lattice mismatch, different expansion coefficients and the formation of antiphase boundaries. Here we demonstrate a silicon nanowire with an integrated gallium-arsenide segment. We precisely control the catalyst composition and surface chemistry to obtain dislocation-free interfaces. The integration of gallium arsenide of high optical quality with silicon is enabled by short gallium phosphide buffers. We anticipate that such hybrid silicon/III–V nanowires open practical routes for quantum information devices, where for instance electronic and photonic quantum bits are manipulated in a III–V segment and stored in a silicon section.