Catalyst-free heteroepitaxial growth of very long InAs nanowires on Si

• We have studied the growth mechanism of the catalyst-free InAs nanowires.
• A transmission line measurement is performed on a catalyst-free InAs nanowire.
• Electrical properties of catalyst-free InAs nanowire are studied.

Catalyst-free, very long InAs nanowires (NWs) are grown on a Si (111) substrate by using metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) system and their growth mechanism is studied. The NW height increases very fast in the beginning of the growth because of the mass-transport contribution of the adatoms from the substrate surface to the NW tip. Then, the NWs grow slowly and consistently until their height exceeds 50 μm. The NW diameter is very uniform along the growth axis regardless of the NW height and this clearly differs from that of the NWs grown via the self-catalyzed vapor–liquid–solid method. A transmission line measurement (TLM) is performed on the very long InAs NW to measure the contact resistance between the NW and the metal electrode. The electrical properties of the NW are further examined. The catalyst-free, very long InAs NWs demonstrated here can be used for an interconnection of the nanoelectronic device array by integrating multiple devices on a single NW.