Control of morphology and crystal purity of InP nanowires by variation of phosphine flux during selective area MOMBE

Abstract

We present experimental results showing how the growth rate, morphology and crystal structure of Au-catalyzed InP nanowires (NWs) fabricated by selective area metal organic molecular beam epitaxy can be tuned by the growth parameters: temperature and phosphine flux. The InP NWs with 20–65 nm diameters are grown at temperatures of 420 and 480 °C with the PH3 flow varying from 1 to 9 sccm. The NW tapering is suppressed at a higher temperature, while pure wurtzite crystal structure is preferred at higher phosphine flows. Therefore, by combining high temperature and high phosphine flux, we are able to fabricate non-tapered and stacking fault-free InP NWs with the quality that other methods rarely achieve. We also develop a model for NW growth and crystal structure which explains fairly well the observed experimental tendencies.