Construction of ZnTe nanowires/Si p–n heterojunctions for electronic and optoelectronic applications

• High-quality p-type nitrogen-doped ZnTe NWs were synthesized.
• ZnTe NW/Si junction FETs show much enhanced devices performances.
• ZnTe NW/Si p–n heterojunctions show very fast response speed of 27.4/85.1 μs.

Nitrogen-doped p-type ZnTe nanowires (NWs) were successfully synthesized by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method. Metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) based on ZnTe NWs and junction field-effect transistors (JFETs) based on ZnTe NW/Si p–n heterojunction were constructed and their devices performances were studied. Compared with MOSFETs, JFETs exhibits greatly enhanced device performances in various aspects, such as the transconductance (gm) and Ion/Ioff ratio were increased to 1.81 μS and ∼102, and the subthreshold swing (S) and threshold voltage were reduced to 8.4 V dec−1 and 2 V, respectively. Moreover, ZnTe NW/Si p–n heterojunctions show excellent rectifying characteristics with rectification ratio up to 104 within ±5 V and very fast response time of 27.4/85.1 μs to varying optical signal, which is much shorter than that reported before, representing the fastest response for ZnTe based nano-photodetectors. These results demonstrate that ZnTe NW/Si p–n heterojunctions have great potential in nano-electronic and optoelectronic applications.

Three-terminal ZnTe NW/Si p–n heterojunction devices were fabricated and studied, which can function as JFETs and photodetectors, and show excellent devices performances.Figure optionsDownload as PowerPoint slide