Effects of growth interruption, As and Ga fluxes, and nitrogen plasma irradiation on the molecular beam epitaxial growth of GaAs/GaAsN core–shell nanowires on Si(111)

Abstract

We investigate fundamental issues on the growth of GaAs/GaAsN core–shell heterostructure nanowires (NWs) by plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy. A Ga catalyst crystallizes during growth interruption at a high As pressure, and afterwards the growth dominantly progresses mainly increasing the NW diameter, thereby forming a wire shell. The shell diameter increases linearly depending on growth time and group III flux, similarly to the growth mechanism of planar layers. The lateral growth rate is 0.19 times lower than the growth rate of planar GaAs on a (100) substrate. At a substrate temperature 570 °C, nitrogen incorporation is inefficient in the shell layer. At a substrate temperature of 430 °C, the nitrogen is effectively introduced under continuous plasma irradiation during the growth of the GaAsN shell, resulting in the introduction of nitrogen within the shell estimated up to about 0.5%.