Effects of growth conditions on the crystal structure of gold-seeded GaP nanowires

we present results that provide fundamental insights on how to experimentally tailor the planar defect density and even the crystal structure in III-V metal-particle-seeded nanowires, where zinc blende is the stable bulk crystal structure. We have grown GaP nanowires with metal-organic vapor-phase epitaxy under different conditions: pulsing of the Ga source, and Continuous growth with and without In background. The dominant crystal structure of the nanowires is zinc blende, which when grown under continuous conditions has a high density of twin planes perpendicular to the growth direction. Using pulsed growth we observed that the twin plane separations were much longer than those observed for continuous growth with an In background. On the other hand, during continuous growth, under In-free conditions, a considerable amount of the wurtzite-phase forms. Our results suggest that it might be possible to predict the conditions necessary for the growth of wires with perfect crystal structure. We interpret our results in terms of the supersaturation during growth. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.