Influence of droplet size on the growth of high-quality self-catalyzed GaAsP nanowires

Abstract

Nanowires (NWs) have better functionality and superior performance as compared with the traditional thin film counterparts. However, NW growth is highly complicated and the growth mechanism is far from clear, especially when it is grown by vapor-liquid-solid mode. In this work, the influences of droplet size on the growth of self-catalyzed ternary NWs were studied using GaAsP NWs. The size-induced Gibbs−Thomson (GT) effect is observed for the first time in the self-catalyzed growth mode, which can make the smaller catalytic droplets have lower effective supersaturations. Thus, the droplet size can significantly influence the uniformity and composition of NWs. By carefully control the droplet size, the growth of highly uniform NW arrays are demonstrated. These results provide useful information for understanding the mechanisms of self-catalyzed III−V NW nucleation and growth with the important ternary III−V material systems.