Growth and properties of InGaAs nanowires on silicon

Free-standing ternary InGaAs nanowires (NW) are at the core of intense investigations due to their integration capabilities on silicon (Si) for next-generation photovoltaics, integrated photonics, tunneling devices, and high-performance gate all-round III-V/Si NW transistors. In this review, recent progress on the growth, structural, optical and electrical properties of InGaAs NWs on Si substrate is highlighted. Particular focus is on a comparison between conventional catalyst-assisted and catalyst-free growth methods as well as self-assembled versus site-selectively grown NW arrays. It will be shown that catalyst-free, high-periodicity NW arrays with extremely high compositional uniformity are mandatory to allow un-ambiguous structure-property correlation measurements. Here, interesting insights into the electronic/optical properties of wurtzite, zincblende and mixed crystal phases of InGaAs will be highlighted based on recent photoluminescence spectroscopy data. Finally, the InGaAs NW-on-Si system is also discussed in the realms of heterojunction properties, providing a promising system for steep-slope tunneling field effect transistors in future low-power post-CMOS intergrated microelectronics and broad-band photoabsorption and detec-tion devices.