Graphene mediated growth of polycrystalline indium phosphide nanowires and monocrystalline-core, polycrystalline-shell silicon nanowires on copper

•A intermediate layer allows growth on dissimilar materials, not limited to the materials here.•Two new designs are demonstrated in this work and utilizes only industrially proven methods.•Graphene allowed growth on large area, non-single crystalline, flexible Cu foil.•MOCVD was used to deposit the semiconductor nanowires on Cu foils.•The method described in this paper is not a conventional process utilized in industry today.

Two types of semiconductors, indium phosphide (InP) and silicon (Si), were separately grown on polycrystalline copper foils with the presence of gold colloidal particles. InP was grown with and without carbon deposition by metal organic chemical vapor deposition, and Si was grown with and without plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition of carbon. While InP and Si grew as films on untreated copper foils, they were found to grow in the form of nanowires when copper foils were pre-treated with carbon. Structural analysis revealed that the grown InP nanowires were polycrystalline. In contrast, the grown Si nanowires were found to have core–shell structures with a monocrystalline core and a polycrystalline shell. Further analysis suggested that graphene was formed on the copper foils during the carbon deposition. Therefore, we concluded that the presence of graphene promoted the growth of InP and Si in the form of nanowires. The demonstration of growing semiconductor nanowires on copper foils could be a new path to integrate semiconductor and metal to provide a unique material platform for a wide range of devices.