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Crystallographic alignment of high-density gallium nitride nanowire arrays

Nature Materials volume 3, pages 524–528 (2004)Cite this article

Abstract

Single-crystalline, one-dimensional semiconductor nanostructures are considered to be one of the critical building blocks for nanoscale optoelectronics1. Elucidation of the vapour–liquid–solid growth mechanism2 has already enabled precise control over nanowire position and size1,3,4,5,6,7,8, yet to date, no reports have demonstrated the ability to choose from different crystallographic growth directions of a nanowire array. Control over the nanowire growth direction is extremely desirable, in that anisotropic parameters such as thermal and electrical conductivity, index of refraction, piezoelectric polarization, and bandgap may be used to tune the physical properties of nanowires made from a given material. Here we demonstrate the use of metal–organic chemical vapour deposition (MOCVD) and appropriate substrate selection to control the crystallographic growth directions of high-density arrays of gallium nitride nanowires with distinct geometric and physical properties. Epitaxial growth of wurtzite gallium nitride on (100) γ-LiAlO2 and (111) MgO single-crystal substrates resulted in the selective growth of nanowires in the orthogonal [11̄0] and [001] directions, exhibiting triangular and hexagonal cross-sections and drastically different optical emission. The MOCVD process is entirely compatible with the current GaN thin-film technology, which would lead to easy scale-up and device integration.

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Figure 1: SEM images of the GaN nanowires.
Figure 2: XRD patterns.
Figure 3: TEM images of the GaN nanowires.
Figure 4: Photoluminescence spectra and polarized XAS.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation, Beckman Foundation, the National Science Foundation (CAREER, NIRT) and Department of Energy. P. Y. is an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow. P. P. and J. G. thank the National Science Foundation for predoctoral fellowship support. Work at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory was supported by the Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences, Division of Materials Science of the US Department of Energy. We thank the National Center for Electron Microscopy for the use of their facilities.

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  1. Tevye Kuykendall and Peter J. Pauzauskie: These authors contributed equally to this work

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, 94720, California, USA

    Tevye Kuykendall, Peter J. Pauzauskie, Joshua Goldberger & Peidong Yang

  2. Materials Science Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, 94720, California, USA

    Yanfeng Zhang, Donald Sirbuly & Peidong Yang

  3. Advanced Light Source, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, 94720, California, USA

    Jonathan Denlinger

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  1. Tevye Kuykendall
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  2. Peter J. Pauzauskie
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Correspondence to Peidong Yang.

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Kuykendall, T., Pauzauskie, P., Zhang, Y. et al. Crystallographic alignment of high-density gallium nitride nanowire arrays. Nature Mater 3, 524–528 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat1177

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