Growth of narrow and straight germanium nanowires by vapor-liquid-solid chemical vapor deposition

This paper describes the growth of germanium nanowires (Ge NWs) via vapor-liquid-solid (VLS) mechanism by the low-pressure chemical vapor deposition (CVD) technique. A systematic study of the growth conditions of the Ge NWs has been conducted by varying the size of the Au nanoparticles and the substrate temperature. The tapering of the nanowires has been minimised when the growth temperature is lowered from 300 to 280 °C which also contributes to the decrease in the diameter of the Ge NWs. The growth temperature of 280 °C yields Ge NWs with diameters of less than 5nm, offering an opportunity for the fabrication of high-performance germanium nanowire field-effect transistors.