Titanium Carbide MXene Nucleation Layer for Epitaxial Growth of High-Quality GaN Nanowires on Amorphous Substrates

Growing III-nitride nanowires on 2D materials is advantageous, as it effectively decouples the underlying growth substrate from the properties of the nanowires. As a relatively new family of 2D materials, MXenes are promising candidates as III-nitride nanowire nucleation layers capable of providing simultaneous transparency and conductivity. In this work, we demonstrate the direct epitaxial growth of GaN nanowires on Ti3C2 MXene films. The MXene films consist of nanoflakes spray coated onto an amorphous silica substrate. We observed an epitaxial relationship between the GaN nanowires and the MXene nanoflakes due to the compatibility between the triangular lattice of Ti3C2 MXene and the hexagonal structure of wurtzite GaN. The GaN nanowires on MXene show good material quality and partial transparency at visible wavelengths. Nanoscale electrical characterization using conductive atomic force microscopy reveals a Schottky barrier height of ∼330 meV between the GaN nanowire and the Ti3C2 MXene film. Our work highlights the potential of using MXene as a transparent and conductive preorienting nucleation layer for high-quality GaN growth on amorphous substrates.