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Structural properties of 〈111〉B -oriented III–V nanowires

Nature Materials volume 5, pages 574–580 (2006)Cite this article

Abstract

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 〈111〉B 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.

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Figure 1: The crystalline structure of 〈111〉B GaP nanowires as determined from HRTEM.
Figure 2: Regular octahedra with two different slices, or ways of truncation.
Figure 3: ATOMS models of nanowires in three different projections.
Figure 4: Histograms of segment thicknesses for six different wires grown at three different temperatures.
Figure 5: Exponential distributions fitted to the segment thickness frequency data at three temperatures.

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Acknowledgements

This work was carried out within the Nanometer Structure Consortium in Lund and was supported by grants from the Swedish Research Council (VR), the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF), the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, the NoE SANDiE (EU contract No E500101-2), as well as the IP NODE (EU contract No 015783 NODE). We acknowledge R. Wallenberg, A. Mikkelsen, K. Dick, and S. Iyengar for valuable discussions and input to this investigation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Solid State Physics, Lund University, SE-221 00, Lund, PO Box 118, Sweden

    Jonas Johansson, Thomas Mårtensson, Brent A. Wacaser, Knut Deppert, Lars Samuelson & Werner Seifert

  2. National Centre for High Resolution Electron Microscopy (nCHREM)/Polymer & Materials Chemistry, Lund University, SE-221 00, Lund, PO Box 124, Sweden

    Lisa S. Karlsson

  3. QuNano AB, Stora Fiskaregatan 13E, SE-222 24, Lund, Sweden

    C. Patrik T. Svensson

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  1. Jonas Johansson
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Correspondence to Jonas Johansson.

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Johansson, J., Karlsson, L., Patrik T. Svensson, C. et al. Structural properties of 〈111〉B -oriented III–V nanowires. Nature Mater 5, 574–580 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat1677

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