We report a method using in situ etching to decouple the axial from the radial nanowire growth pathway, independent of other growth parameters. Thereby a wide range of growth parameters can be explored to improve the nanowire properties without concern of tapering or excess structural defects formed during radial growth. We demonstrate the method using etching by HCl during InP nanowire growth. The improved crystal quality of etched nanowires is indicated by strongly enhanced photoluminescence as compared to reference nanowires obtained without etching.

The use of tetraethyltin (TESn) and dimethylzinc (DMZn) as in situ n- and p-dopant precursors during particle-assisted growth of InP nanowires is reported. Gate voltage dependent transport measurements demonstrate that the nanowires can be predictably synthesized as either n- or p-type. These doped nanowires can be characterized based on their electric field response and we find that n-type doping scales over a range from 10(17) to 10(19) cm(-3) with increasing input TESn dopant molar fraction. On the other hand, the p-type doping using DMZn saturates at low levels, probably related to a strong increase in nanowire growth rate with increasing DMZn molar fractions. By optimizing growth conditions with respect to tapering, axial pn-junctions exhibiting rectifying behavior were fabricated. The pn-junctions can be operated as light emitting diodes.

The photoluminescence emission peak energy of GaN quantum dots was observed to shift to higher energy with decreasing quantum dot size. This effect was found to be a combination of a blueshift from the confinement-induced shift of the electronic levels and a redshift from the increased Coulomb energy induced by a compression of the exciton Bohr radius. From this observation, absolute values of the exciton binding energy as a function of quantum dot size are determined.

We demonstrate photoluminescence (PL) from self-assembling InGaN quantum dots (QDs), which are artificially fabricated on AlGaN surfaces via metalorganic chemical vapor deposition. InGaN QDs are successfully fabricated by the growth mode transition to three-dimensional nanoscale island formation by using “antisurfactant” silicon on AlGaN surface. The diameter and height of the fabricated InGaN QDs are estimated to be ∼10 nm and ∼5 nm, respectively, by an atomic-force microscope (AFM). Indium mole fraction of InxGa1−xN QDs is controlled from x=∼0.22 to ∼0.52 by varying the growth temperature of QDs. Intense photoluminescence is observed even at room temperature from InGaN QDs embedded with the GaN capping layers. In addition, from the temperature dependence of the PL-peak energy, we convincingly show that the PL emission actually comes from the InGaN QDs.

Articles you may be interested inInfluence of the GaN barrier thickness on the optical properties of InGaN/GaN multilayer quantum dot heterostructures Appl. Phys. Lett. 96, 251904 (2010); 10.1063/1.3456392 Microstructural and optical properties of self-organized GaN quantum-dot assemblies