The controllable growth of in-plane Ge nanowires provides alternative material foundations for the scalability of Ge-based semiconductor qubit devices. Here, ordered in-plane Ge hut wires with controllable size are grown on the trench-patterned Si substrate by molecular beam epitaxy. By tuning the thickness of the SiGe alloy layer, which acts as strain buffered layer, GeSi mounds with controllable size are achieved. Subsequently, through the deposition of a Ge layer followed by in situ annealing, we realize the size-controllable growth of the Ge nanowire with a height from 1.8 nm to 4.0 nm, as characterized by AFM and TEM techniques. These size-tunable and catalyst-free Ge hut wires provide a promising pathway toward the fabrication of integrated nanowire-based quantum devices.
Gao et al. (Tue,) studied this question.