Effect of interwire separation on growth kinetics and properties of site-selective GaAs nanowires

We report tuning of the growth kinetics, geometry, and properties of autocatalytic GaAs nanowires (NW) by precisely controlling their density on SiO2-mask patterned Si (111) substrates using selective area molecular beam epitaxy. Using patterned substrates with different mask opening size (40-120 nm) and pitch (0.25-3 mu m), we find that the NW geometry (length, diameter) is independent of the opening size, in contrast to non-catalytic GaAs NWs, whereas the NW geometry strongly depends on pitch, i.e., interwire separation and NW density. In particular, two distinct growth regimes are identified: a diffusion-limited regime for large pitches (low NW density) and a competitive growth regime for smaller pitches (high NW density), where axial and radial NW growth rates are reduced. The transition between these two regimes is significantly influenced by the growth conditions and shifts to smaller pitches with increasing As/Ga flux ratio. Ultimately, the pitch-dependent changes in growth kinetics lead to distinctly different photoluminescence properties, highlighting that mask template design is a very critical parameter for tuning intrinsic NW properties. (c) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.