Here, the energy bandgap of InSb increased from 0.17 to 0.208 eV due to the high carrier concentration effect. Figure 3d schematically depicts the InSb energy bandgap. The increase in the energy bandgap was due to excess electrons filling up low-energy states in the conduction band. In other words,
the excitation of electrons moved to a high-energy state (i.e., unfilled selleck screening library orbital) at the bottom of the conduction band (E g op). The excess electrons caused an enlargement of the energy bandgap, known as the Burstein-Moss (BM) effect [29–31]. The BM effect is an important phenomenon for n-type semiconductors. According to this theory, the Burstein-Moss shift (ΔE BM) depends on the electron concentration, as shown below [32]: (1) where n is the electron carrier concentration, k is the Boltzmann constant, and T is the absolute temperature. The m e *
and m h * are the effective masses of electron and hole, respectively. Given that m e * = 0.014 m 0 and m h * = 0.43 m 0, the electron carrier concentration could be calculated from Equation 1. According to the calculation, the electron carrier concentration was 3.94 × 1017 cm−3, which is more than the intrinsic Inflammation inhibitor carrier concentration of InSb [2]. Therefore, the enlargement of energy bandgap and high electron density characteristics verified that the synthesized InSb nanowires are degenerate semiconductors, of which the Fermi level is located above the conduction band minimum [29]. Based on the theoretical calculation using Equation 1, during the crystal growth process, the high carrier concentration can be ascribed to the formation of Sb vacancies in InSb nanowires. To understand the transport characteristics of InSb nanowires, a single InSb nanowire was connected with Pt electrodes to fabricate a Selleck Rabusertib nanodevice and measured using a Lck high-power electrical measurement system (Keithley 237), as illustrated in Figure 4a. The I-V curve shows the back-to-back Schottky contacts formed in between the Pt electrode and an InSb nanowire. The metal–semiconductor–metal (M-S-M) model for quantitative analysis of I-V characteristics of an InSb nanowire was applied to fit the variables.
Based on this M-S-M model, one can estimate the intrinsic parameters of the InSb nanowire. Figure 4b schematically depicts the semiconductor nanowire-based M-S-M structure and its equivalent circuit. Figure 4c shows the energy band diagram of the M-S-M structure. The voltages on barrier 1, the nanowire, and barrier 2 are denoted as V 1, V NW, and V 2, respectively. This provides the following equation: (2) Figure 4 I – V curves and M-S-M structure and its energy band diagram. (a) The almost symmetric I-V curve. The inset shows a representative FESEM image of InSb nanowire-based M-S-M structure. (b) Schematic diagram of the M-S-M structure and its equivalent circuit. (c) Energy band diagram of the M-S-M structure under applied voltage V.