Kinetically limited composition of ternary III-V nanowires

Controlling the composition of ternary III-V semiconductor nanowires is of high technological importance and the current theoretical understanding is so far limited. We derive a model for the kinetically limited composition of metal-particle-seeded, ternary nanowires. The model is based on the diffusion controlled growth rate of supercritical nuclei. Applying this model to gold-seeded and self-seeded growth of InxGa1-xAs we are able to explain the experimentally observed features related to nanowire compositions, including the attainability of compositions within the miscibility gap. By directly comparing with experiments we find that 2% arsenic in the alloy particle during self-seeded growth of InGaAs nanowires is a realistic assumption.