Structural properties of (111)B-oriented III-V nanowires
Author
Summary, in English
Controlled growth of nanowires is an important, emerging research field with many applications in, for example, electronics, photonics, and life sciences. Nanowires of zinc blende crystal structure, grown in the left fence111right fenceB direction, which is the favoured direction of growth, usually have a large number of twin-plane defects. Such defects limit the performance of optoelectronic nanowire-based devices. To investigate this defect formation, we examine GaP nanowires grown by metal-organic vapour-phase epitaxy. We show that the nanowire segments between the twin planes are of octahedral shape and are terminated by {111} facets, resulting in a microfaceting of the nanowires. We discuss these findings in a nucleation context, where we present an idea on how the twin planes form. This investigation contributes to the understanding of defect formation in nanowires. One future prospect of such knowledge is to determine strategies on how to control the crystallinity of nanowires.
Publishing year
2006
Language
English
Pages
574-580
Publication/Series
Nature Materials
Volume
5
Issue
7
Document type
Journal article
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
Topic
- Condensed Matter Physics
Status
Published
Research group
- Nanometer structure consortium (nmC)
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 1476-4660