Epitaxial Dirac Semimetal Vertical Heterostructures for Advanced Device Architectures

Exploiting the extraordinary transport and optical properties of 3D topological semimetals for device applications requires epitaxial integration with semiconductors to carefully control carrier transport, yet no studies have established heteroepitaxy on top of any topological semimetals to date. Here, a novel approach toward fabricating heterostructures is demonstrated by epitaxially incorporating the Dirac semimetal Cd₃As₂ between Zn_xCd_1-xTe and CdTe layers via molecular beam epitaxy on GaAs (001) substrates. The approach utilizes the higher energy (001) surface of Cd₃As₂ to stabilize 2D epitaxy of zinc blende semiconductors. To demonstrate the impact heterostructure formation offers to device performance, an all-epitaxial, barrier-type vertical photodetector is fabricated that accesses a different carrier separation mechanism than previously reported non-epitaxial junctions and consequently exhibits significantly reduced dark currents. The results highlight the important role that epitaxial integration can play in accessing advanced architectures for topological semimetal-based devices.