Evolution of aluminum nitride nanostructures from nanoflower to thin film on silicon substrate by direct nitridation of aluminum precursor

Herein we demonstrate a convenient regulation of several aluminum nitride nanostructures through direct nitridation of aluminum precursor under different conditions. Different AlN nanostructures including conic nanoflowers, nanowires, quasi-aligned nanocones and polycrystalline thin film have been obtained on the Au-coated Si substrates just simply by decreasing the reaction temperature or changing the reaction procedure, and a four-stage growth mechanism is hereby deduced. The conic nanoflower composed of AlN nanocones is an interesting geometry. The photoluminescence and field emission measurement revealed that these AlN nanoflowers own a broad blue emission band and a rather good field emission property, suggesting the potential applications in light and field emission nanodevices.