Abstract
Raman scattering is a powerful inelastic light scattering technique able to probe the vibrational properties of materials. This technique has been successfully employed in semiconductor nanowires to provide information on their fundamental properties, such as the phononic properties, the crystal composition, and the electronic band structure. When performed in a polarization-resolved manner on a single nanowire, Raman spectroscopy can even allow addressing the nanowire’s crystal structure. This is a fact of pivotal importance, as crystal phase is emerging as a novel degree of freedom in the bandgap engineering and phonon engineering of materials, and the control of the crystal phase is a possibility uniquely offered by nanowires. Indeed, recent advances in the synthetic growth of nanowires have given access to crystal phases (e.g., hexagonal phase in Si and Ge) that in the bulk can only be obtained under extreme pressure conditions, and it is possible to controllably switch between different crystal phases during the growth of nanowires. The realization and, even more, the interpretation of polarized Raman experiments on nanowires can be non-trivial, as several issues have to be considered. Therefore, in this chapter, we provide the basic theoretical background necessary to calculate Raman selection rules and interpret polarization-resolved Raman spectra of semiconductor nanowires. We also discuss the main ingredients of a Raman setup, with a focus on the scattering geometries typically used for nanowires. We highlight the main differences in the Raman spectra of nanowires with cubic and hexagonal crystal symmetries, and we treat also the case of the most challenging type of heterostructure: a nanoscale crystal-phase homostructure. Finally, we discuss resonant Raman experiments that allow the determination of the energy of some electronic transitions in nanowires. We focus mostly on a very new material system, namely Ge nanowires with controlled crystal phase, but the general procedure that we establish can be applied to several types of nanostructures.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
In hexagonal lattices, the four index Bravais–Miller scheme is often used for indicating crystal directions, with [0001] labeling the c-axis direction.
References
F. Bechstedt, A. Belabbes, Structure, energetics, and electronic states of III–V compound polytypes. J. Phys. Condens. Matter 25, 273201 (2013)
K. Takahashi, T. Morizumi, Growth of InAs whiskers in wurtzite structure. Japan. J. Appl. Phys. 5, 657 (1966)
D. Jacobsson, F. Panciera, J. Tersoff, M.C. Reuter, S. Lehmann, S. Hofmann, K.A. Dick, F.M. Ross, Interface dynamics and crystal phase switching in GaAs nanowires. Nature 531, 317–322 (2016)
P. Krogstrup, H.I. Jorgensen, E. Johnson, M.H. Madsen, C.B. Sorensen, A. Fontcuberta i Morral, M. Aagesen, J. Nygard, F. Glas, Advances in the theory of III–V nanowire growth dynamics. J. Phys. D Appl. Phys. 46, 313001 (2013)
P. Caroff, J. Bolinsson, J. Johansson, Crystal phases in III–V nanowires: from random toward engineered polytypism. IEEE J. Sel. Top. Quant. Electron. 17, 829 (2011)
P. Caroff, K.A. Dick, J. Johansson, M.E. Messing, K. Deppert, L. Samuelson, Controlled polytypic and twin-plane superlattices in III–V nanowires. Nat. Nanotech. 4, 50 (2009)
K.A. Dick, C. Thelander, L. Samuelson, P. Caroff, Crystal phase engineering in single InAs nanowires. Nano Lett. 10, 3494 (2010)
H.I.T. Hauge, M.A. Verheijen, S. Conesa-Boj, T. Etzelstorfer, M. Watzinger, D. Kriegner, I. Zardo, C. Fasolato, F. Capitani, P. Postorino et al., Hexagonal silicon realized. Nano Lett. 15, 5855–5860 (2015)
L. Vincent, G. Patriarche, G. Hallais, C. Renard, C. Gardes, D. Troadec, D. Bouchier, Novel heterostructured Ge nanowires based on polytype transformation. Nano Lett. 14, 4828–4836 (2014)
X. Cartoixà, M. Palummo, H.I.T. Hauge, E.P.A.M. Bakkers, R. Rurali, Optical emission in hexagonal SiGe nanowires. Nano Lett. 17, 4753–4758 (2017)
E.M.T. Fadaly, A. Dijkstra, J. R. Suckert, et al., Direct-bandgap emission from hexagonal Ge and SiGe alloys. Nature 580, 205–209 (2020)
M. De Luca, I. Zardo, Semiconductor Nanowires: Raman Spectroscopy Studies, in Raman Spectroscopy and Applications, ed. by K. Maaz (InTech, 2017)
B. Loitsch, J. Winnerl, G. Grimaldi, J. Wierzbowski, D. Rudolph, Crystal phase quantum dots in the ultrathin core of GaAs-AlGaAs Core-shell nanowires. Nano Lett. 15, 7544 (2015)
MB. Bavinck, KD. Jöns, M. Zieliński, G. Patriarche, JC. Harmand, N. Akopian, V. Zwiller, Photon cascade from a single crystal phase nanowire quantum dot. Nano Lett. 16, 1081 (2016)
A. De, C.E. Pryor, Predicted band structures of III–V semiconductors in the wurtzite phase. Phys. Rev. B 81, 155210 (2010)
J.L. Birman, Simplified LCAO method for zincblende, wurtzite, and mixed crystal structures. Phys. Rev. B 115, 1493 (1959)
M. Murayama, T. Nakayama, Chemical trend of band offsets at wurtzite/zinc-blende heterocrystalline semiconductor interfaces. Phys. Rev. B 49, 4710 (1994)
J. Ziy, X. Wan, G. Wei, K. Zhang, X. Xie, Lattice dynamics of zinc-blende GaN and AlN: I. Bulk phonons. J. Phys. Condens. Matter 8, 6323 (1996)
Harima, H, Properties of GaN and related compounds studied by means of Raman scattering. J. Phys. Condens. Matter 14, R967–R993 (2002)
C.A. Arguello, D.L. Rousseau, S.P.S. Porto, First-order raman effect in wurtzite-type crystals. Phys. Rev. 181, 1351 (1969)
M. Cardona, Light Scattering in Solids II (Springer Topics in Applied Physics), ed. by M. Cardona, G. Güntherodt, vol. 50 (Berlin: Springer, 1982), pp. 5019–178
B.R. Wu, First-principles study on the high-pressure behavior of the zone-center modes of lonsdaleite silicon. Phys. Rev. B 61, 5–8 (2000)
M. Raya-Moreno, H. Aramberri, J.A. Seijas-Bellido, X. Cartoixà, R. Rurali, Thermal conductivity of hexagonal Si and hexagonal Si nanowires from first-principles. Appl. Phys. Lett. 111, 032107 (2017)
M. De Luca, A. Polimeni, Electronic properties of wurtzite-phase InP nanowires determined by optical and magneto-optical spectroscopy. Appl. Phys. Rev. 4, 041102 (2017)
I. Zardo, S. Conesa-Boj, F, Peiro, J.R. Morante, J. Arbiol, E. Uccelli, G. Abstreiter, A. Fontcuberta i Morral, Raman spectroscopy of wurtzite and zinc-blende GaAs nanowires: Polarization dependence, selection rules, and strain effects. Phys. Rev. B 80, 245324 (2009)
G. Turrel, J. Corset (ed.), Raman Microscopy Developments and Applications, 1st edn. (Malta: Academic Press, 1996). https://www.horiba.com/us/en/scientific/products/raman-spectroscopy/raman-academy/raman-faqs/what-analysis-spot-or-laser-spot-size-is-used-for-a-raman-microscope/
Spectroscopy and Imaging GmbH. S&I Spectroscopy & Imaging GmbH, Warstein (Germany). (2015). https://www.s-and-i.eu/index.php/products/triple. Accessed 31 Mar 2019
A. Glebov et al., Novel Volume Bragg Grating Notch Filters for Ultralow-Frequency Raman Measurements. The 3rd Scientific EOS Annual Meeting (EOSAM 2010), paper, vol. 4007. (2010)
NIST, Atomic Spectra Database Lines Form. (National Institute of Standards and Technology, US Department of Commerce, Gaithersburg, 1995). https://physics.nist.gov/PhysRefData/ASD/lines_form.html. Accessed 31 Mar 2019
R. Loudon, The Raman effect in crystals. Adv. Phys. 13, 423–482 (1964)
M. De Luca, Addressing the electronic properties of III–V nanowires by photoluminescence excitation spectroscopy. J. Phys. D Appl. Phys. 50, 054001 (2017)
J. Wang, M.S. Gudiksen, X. Duan, Y. Cui, C.M. Lieber, Highly polarized photoluminescence and photodetection from single indium phosphide nanowires. Science 293, 1455 (2001)
H.E. Ruda, A. Shik, Polarization-sensitive optical phenomena in semiconducting and metallic nanowires. Phys. Rev. B 72, 115308 (2005)
M. De Luca, A. Zilli, A. Fonseka, S. Mokkapati, A. Miriametro, H. Tan, L. Smith, C. Jagadish, M. Capizzi, A. Polimeni, Polarized light absorption in wurtzite InP nanowire ensembles. Nano Lett. 15, 998 (2015)
L.D. Landau, E.M. Lifshitz, L.P. Pitaevskii, In Electrodynamics of Continuous Media. (Pergamon, Oxford, UK, 1984), p. 3442
C. Fasolato, M. De Luca, D. Djomani, L. Vincent, C. Renard, G. Di Iorio, V. Paillard, M. Amato, R. Rurali, I. Zardo, Crystalline, phononic, and electronic properties of heterostructured polytypic Ge nanowires by Raman spectroscopy. Nano Lett. 18, 7075 (2018)
M. Ramsteiner, O. Brandt, P. Kusch, S. Breuer, S. Reich, L. Geelhaar, Quenching of the E2 phonon line in the Raman spectra of wurtzite GaAs nanowires caused by the dielectric polarization contrast. Appl. Phys. Lett. 103, 043121 (2013)
F.J. Lopez, J.K. Hyun, U. Givan, I.S. Kim, A.L. Holsteen, L.J. Lauhon, Diameter and polarization-dependent raman scattering intensities of semiconductor nanowires. Nano Lett. 12, 2266 (2012)
J. Fréchette, C. Carraro, Diameter-dependent modulation and polarization anisotropy in Raman scattering from individual nanowires. Phys. Rev. B 74, 161404 (2006)
M.Y. Swinkels, A. Campo, D. Vakulov, K. Wonjong, L. Gagliano, S. Escobar Steinvall, H. Detz, M. De Luca, A. Lugstein, E. Bakkers, A. Fontcuberta i Morral, I. Zardo, Measuring the optical absorption of single nanowires. Phys. Rev. Appl. 14, 024045 (2020)
J.H. Parker Jr., D.W. Feldman, M. Ashkin, Raman scattering by silicon and germanium. Phys. Rev. 155, 712 (1967)
X. Gonze, J.-P. Vigneron, Density-functional approach to nonlinear-response coefficients of solids. Phys. Rev. B 39, 13120 (1989)
J.F. Nye, Physical Properties of Crystals (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1957)
S.A. Fortuna, X. Li, Metal-catalyzed semiconductor nanowires: a review on the control of growth directions. Semicond. Sci. Technol. 25, 024005 (2010)
D. de Matteis, M. De Luca, E.M.T. Fadaly, M.A. Verheijen, M. López-Suárez, R. Rurali, E.P.A.M. Bakkers, I. Zardo, Probing lattice dynamics and electronic resonances in hexagonal Ge and SixGe1-x alloys in nanowires by Raman spectroscopy. ACS Nano. 14(6), 6845–6856 (2020)
A.A. Kelly, K.M. Knowles, Crystallography and Crystal Defects, 2nd edn. (Wiley, Weinheim, Germany, 2012)
M. De Luca, C. Fasolato, M.A. Verheijen, Y. Ren, M.Y. Swinkels, S. Kölling, E.P.A.M. Bakkers, R. Rurali, I. Zardo, Phonon engineering in twinning superlattice nanowires. Nano Lett. 19, 4702 (2019)
F. Cerdeira, W. Dreybrodt, M. Cardona, Resonant Raman scattering in germanium. Solid State Comm. 10, 591 (1972)
T. Kaewmaraya, L. Vincent, M. Amato, Accurate estimation of band offsets in group IV polytype junctions: a first-principles study. J. Phys. Chem. C 121, 5820 (2017)
Acknowledgments
C.F. acknowledges financial support from The Sapienza University scholarship “Borsa di Perfezionamento all’Estero 2017-2018.” I.Z. acknowledges financial support from the Swiss National Science Foundation research grant (Project Grant No. 200021_165784) and from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement No 756365). M.D.L. acknowledges support from the Swiss National Science Foundation Ambizione grant (Grant No. PZ00P2_179801). We thank Laetitia Vincent and Erik P.A.M. Bakkers for providing us with samples, Riccardo Rurali and Michele Amato for theoretical calculations, Diego De Matteis for the measurements in Figure 12, and Marcel A. Verheijen for the TEM in Figure 15. C.F. is thankful to professor Paolo Piccinni from Sapienza University for the fruitful discussion.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Fasolato, C., Zardo, I., De Luca, M. (2021). Addressing Crystal Structure in Semiconductor Nanowires by Polarized Raman Spectroscopy. In: Fukata, N., Rurali, R. (eds) Fundamental Properties of Semiconductor Nanowires. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-9050-4_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-9050-4_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-15-9049-8
Online ISBN: 978-981-15-9050-4
eBook Packages: Chemistry and Materials ScienceChemistry and Material Science (R0)