Indium Nitride Nanostructures Prepared by Various Growth Techniques

In the last few years the interest in the material properties of Indium Nitride (InN) semiconductor has been remarkable. There have been significant improvements in the properties and growth methods of InN nanowires (NWs). High quality single crystalline InN NWs with high growth rate are regularly obtained. InN NWs exhibit a highly conducting quasi two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) on their surface, which causes nearly metallic conductivity even at low temperatures. The newly verified narrow band gap (~0.69 eV) of InN extends the spectral range covered by III-nitrides to near infrared, which offers a great advantage of nitrides for optoelectronic applications. In this article, the work accomplished in the InN NW research, from its evolution to till now, is reviewed. We mainly concentrate on the growth, characterization, and recent developments in the InN NW research. The most popular growth techniques, metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) and molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) are discussed in detail with their recent progress. Important phenomena in the growth of InN NWs as well as the problems remaining for future study are also discussed.