Growth mechanisms and crystallographic structure of InP nanowires on lattice-mismatched substrates

We present a growth model that predicts the growth phase and mechanism of InP nanowires (NWs) and the experimental verifications of the model. The NWs were grown on lattice-mismatched GaAs substrates using metal-organic chemical vapor deposition via Au nanodrop-assisted vapor-liquid-solid growth. Nanodrops with larger diameters are shown to grow longer NWs because growth is governed mainly by direct precursor impingement on the nanodrop surface. The theoretical and experimental results also show that growth phase is dependent on NW diameter. We show that InP NWs with a diameter less than a certain value exhibit coherent growth of a single crystalline wurtzite (WZ) phase, whereas larger diameter InP NWs often contain sequences of WZ and zincblende phases and stacking faults. These findings allow one to achieve coherent NW growth and WZ phases free from twinning if the NW diameter is below certain material-dependent critical diameters. (C) 2008 American Institute of Physics.