Growth of Au-catalyzed ordered GaAs nanowire arrays by molecular-beam epitaxy

Ordered gallium arsenide (GaAs) nanowires are grown by. molecular-beam epitaxy on GaAs (11 I)B substrates using Au-catalyzed vapor-liquid-solid growth defined by nanochannel alumina (NCA) templates. Field-emission scanning electron, microscope images show highly ordered nanowires with a growth direction perpendicular to the substrate. The size (i.e., diameter) distribution of the wires is drastically narrowed by depositing the gold catalyst through an NCA template mask; this narrows the size distribution of the gold dots and arranges them in a well-ordered array, as defined by the NCA template. The nanowire diameter distribution, full width at half maximum on the masked substrate is 5.1 nm, compared with 15.7 nm on an unmasked substrate. (C) 2002 American Institute of Physics. [DOI: 10.1063/1.1532772].