Silver catalyzed gallium phosphide nanowires integrated on silicon and in situ Ag-alloying induced bandgap transition

Insights into the Synthesis Mechanisms of Ag-Cu3P-GaP Multicomponent Nanoparticles

Metal-semiconductor nanoparticle heterostructures are exciting materials for photocatalytic applications. Phase and facet engineering are critical for designing highly efficient catalysts. Therefore, understanding processes occurring during the nanostructure synthesis is crucial to gain control over properties such as the surface and interface facets' orientations, morphology, and crystal structure. However, the characterization of nanostructures after the synthesis makes clarifying their formation mechanisms nontrivial and sometimes even impossible. In this study, we used an environmental transmission electron microscope with an integrated metal-organic chemical vapor deposition system to enlighten fundamental dynamic processes during the Ag-Cu₃P-GaP nanoparticle synthesis using Ag-Cu₃P seed particles. Our results reveal that the GaP phase nucleated at the Cu₃P surface, and growth proceeded via a topotactic reaction involving counter-diffusion of Cu⁺ and Ga³⁺ cations. After the initial GaP growth steps, the Ag and Cu₃P phases formed specific interfaces with the GaP growth front. GaP growth proceeded by a similar mechanism observed for the nucleation involving the diffusion of Cu atoms through/along the Ag phase toward other regions, followed by the redeposition of Cu₃P at a specific Cu₃P crystal facet, not in contact with the GaP phase. The Ag phase was essential for this process by acting as a medium enabling the efficient transport of Cu atoms away from and, simultaneously, Ga atoms toward the GaP-Cu₃P interface. This study shows that enlightening fundamental processes is critical for progress in synthesizing phase- and facet-engineered multicomponent nanoparticles with tailored properties for specific applications, including catalysis.

XRD Evaluation of Wurtzite Phase in MBE Grown Self-Catalyzed GaP Nanowires

Control and analysis of the crystal phase in semiconductor nanowires are of high importance due to the new possibilities for strain and band gap engineering for advanced nanoelectronic and nanophotonic devices. In this letter, we report the growth of the self-catalyzed GaP nanowires with a high concentration of wurtzite phase by molecular beam epitaxy on Si (111) and investigate their crystallinity. Varying the growth temperature and V/III flux ratio, we obtained wurtzite polytype segments with thicknesses in the range from several tens to 500 nm, which demonstrates the high potential of the phase bandgap engineering with highly crystalline self-catalyzed phosphide nanowires. The formation of rotational twins and wurtzite polymorph in vertical nanowires was observed through complex approach based on transmission electron microscopy, powder X-ray diffraction, and reciprocal space mapping. The phase composition, volume fraction of the crystalline phases, and wurtzite GaP lattice parameters were analyzed for the nanowires detached from the substrate. It is shown that the wurtzite phase formation occurs only in the vertically-oriented nanowires during vapor-liquid-solid growth, while the wurtzite phase is absent in GaP islands parasitically grown via the vapor-solid mechanism. The proposed approach can be used for the quantitative evaluation of the mean volume fraction of polytypic phase segments in heterostructured nanowires that are highly desirable for the optimization of growth technologies.

Comparison of GaAs nanowire growth seeded by Ag and Au colloidal nanoparticles on silicon

We present a comparative study of GaAs nanowire growth on Si(111) substrates by molecular beam epitaxy with the assistance of Au and Ag colloidal nanoparticles. Our approach allows the synthesis of nanowires with different catalyst materials in separate sectors of the same substrate within the same epitaxial process. We match the experimental results to the modeling of chemical potentials and nanowire length distributions to analyze the impact of silicon incorporation into the catalyst droplets on the growth rates and size homogeneity in ensembles of Au- and Ag-catalyzed GaAs nanowires.

Silver as Seed-Particle Material for GaAs Nanowires--Dictating Crystal Phase and Growth Direction by Substrate Orientation

Here we investigate the feasibility of silver as seed-particle material to synthesize GaAs nanowires and show that both crystal phase and growth direction can be controlled by choice of substrate orientation. A (111)B substrate orientation can be used to form vertically aligned wurtzite GaAs nanowires and a (100) substrate orientation to form vertically aligned zinc blende GaAs nanowires. A 45-50% yield of vertical nanowire growth is achieved on the (100) substrate orientation without employing any type of surface modification or nucleation strategy to promote a vertical growth direction. In addition, photoluminescence measurements reveal that the photon emission from the silver seeded wurtzite GaAs nanowires is characterized by a single and narrow emission peak at 1.52 eV.