The influences of droplet size on the growth of self-catalyzed ternary nanowires (NWs) were studied using GaAsP NWs. The size-induced Gibbs-Thomson (GT) effect makes the smaller catalytic droplets have lower effective supersaturations and hence slower nucleation rates than the larger ones. Large variation in droplet size thus led to the growth of NWs with low uniformity, while a good size uniformity of droplets resulted in the production of highly uniform NWs. Moreover, thinner NWs were observed to be richer in P, indicating that P is more resistant to the GT effect than As because of a higher chemical potential inside Ga droplets. These results provide useful information for understanding the mechanisms of self-catalyzed III-V NW nucleation and growth with the important ternary III-V material systems.
Keywords: GaAsP; Gibbs−Thomson effect; Nanowire; chemical potential; droplet size; self−catalyzed; uniformity.