Alloying InAs and InP nanowires for optoelectronic applications: A first principles study

The capability of nanowires to relieve the stress introduced by lattice mismatching through radial relaxation opens the possibility to search for devices for optoelectronic applications. However, there are difficulties to fabricate, and therefore to explore the properties of nanowires with narrow diameters. Here we apply first principles calculations to study the electronic and optical properties of narrow InAs1 − xPx nanowires. Our results show that the absorption threshold can be pushed to near-ultraviolet region, and suggests that arrays of these nanowires with different diameters and compositions could be used as devices acting from the mid-infrared to the near-ultraviolet region.