Complete composition tunability of InGaN nanowires using a combinatorial approach

The III nitrides have been intensely studied in recent years because of their huge potential for everything from high-efficiency solid-state lighting and photovoltaics to high-power and temperature electronics(1-3). In particular, the InGaN ternary alloy is of interest for solid-state lighting and photovoltaics because of the ability to tune the direct bandgap of this material from the near-ultraviolet to the near-infrared region. In an effort to synthesize InGaN nitride, researchers have tried many growth techniques(4-13). Nonetheless, there remains considerable difficulty in making high-quality InGaN films and/or freestanding nanowires with tunability across the entire range of compositions. Here we report for the first time the growth of single-crystalline InxGa1-xN nanowires across the entire compositional range from x = 0 to 1; the nanowires were synthesized by low-temperature halide chemical vapour deposition(9) and were shown to have tunable emission from the near-ultraviolet to the near-infrared region. We propose that the exceptional composition tunability is due to the low process temperature and the ability of the nanowire morphology to accommodate strain-relaxed growth(14), which suppresses the tendency toward phase separation that plagues the thin-film community.