Probing the electrical transport properties of intrinsic InN nanowires

Abstract

We have studied the electrical transport properties of intrinsic InN nanowires using an electrical nanoprobing technique in a scanning electron microscope environment. It is found that such intrinsic InN nanowires exhibit an ohmic conduction at low bias and a space charge limited conduction at high bias. It is further derived that such InN nanowires can exhibit a free carrier concentration as low as ∼1013 cm−3 and possess a very large electron mobility in the range of 8000–12 000 cm2/V s, approaching the theoretically predicted maximum electron mobility at room temperature. In addition, charge traps are found to distribute exponentially just below the conduction band edge, with a characteristic energy ∼65 meV.