Control of semiconducting and metallic indium oxide nanowires

Oxide semiconductors are candidates for chemical sensors, transparent electrodes, and electronic devices. Here, we have investigated metal-to-semiconductor transitions during In(2)O(3) nanowire growth with variations in the O(2) gas rate. Photoluminescence and current-voltage characteristics of In(2)O(3) nanowire transistors have been used to understand the transition behavior. The proportion of metallic nanowires to semiconducting nanowires significantly changes from 80:20 to 25:75 when the O(2) fraction in argon increases from 0.005% to 0.2%. We believe that excessive oxygen vacancies at low O(2) gas rates increase the conductivity and thereby the number of nanowires with metallic characteristics. With an increase in oxygen flow, the oxygen vacancies in the nanowires are substituted with oxygen and the subsequent reduction in oxygen vacancies increases the number of semiconducting nanowires. The threshold voltage of transistors fabricated with semiconducting nanowires shifts in a positive direction by about +3.3 eV between nanowires grown with 0.005% and 0.2% oxygen. The results here indicate that electrical and optical characteristics of oxide nanowires can be controlled by the amount of oxygen during growth instead of relying on conventional postgrowth high-temperature annealing or other postprocessing techniques.