Characterization of structural defects in highly mismatched GaP nanowires

Structural defects, found in gallium-phosphide nanowires, grown from Au catalyst on InP 〈111〉B substrate using metal organic molecular beam epitaxy, were extensively studied using Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM). Several types of growth were analyzed: pure axial, axial-lateral and self catalyzed. Pure axially grown nanowires were found to be single crystals with wurzite crystal structure and Ga-polarity. These nanowires contained threading edge dislocation along the wire axis. The axial-lateral nanowires grew with zinc blend crystal structure and exhibited polycrystalline nature. Self catalyzed single crystalline nanowires possessed wurzite crystal structure with P-polarity and exhibited threading edge dislocations along their axis.