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Severe melt-back etching has forced the epitaxy of GaN on Si to use an AlN buffer layer for growing high-quality two-dimensional layers, despite its high resistivity. Herein, we report a metal-based pre-orienting layer (POL) for growing GaN nanostructures (NSs) to replace the traditional AlN buffer layer. Two metals, titanium (Ti) and hafnium (Hf), were evaluated as POLs. We succeeded in fabricating arrays of GaN NSs with highly preferred orientation using selective-area growth. The crystallographic phase of the POLs critically affected the evolved orientation of the crystals. Photoluminescence measurements revealed that GaN NSs with Hf-based POLs were of reasonably high quality. We believe that this result will facilitate broader III-V semiconductor applications using alternative substrates moving beyond conventional Si-based optoelectronics.

Nitrogen flow rate is one of the important growth parameters for the growth of group-III nitride nanowires in plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy. However, nitrogen flow rate has received less attention compared to the group-III metal fluxes since its effects are not as prominent as that of the metal fluxes. In this study, we investigated the effects of nitrogen flow rate on the morphology and composition of AlGaN nanowires. Reducing the nitrogen flow rate improved the structural uniformity and increased the Al composition. We present a composition change model and show that excess nitrogen suppresses Ga desorption by recombining the Ga atoms, thereby causing a change in the composition of AlGaN. It was confirmed that the influence of the nitrogen flow rate on the Al composition varied with the growth temperature. These results provide insights into the role of nitrogen flow rate on the growth of AlGaN nanowires and suggest that more sophisticated growth control is possible by considering the nitrogen flow rate.

Thick InGaN alloys with high In content are essential for emerging InGaN photovoltaic applications. By applying a compositionally graded structure, various thicknesses of InGaN layers were grown using metal organic chemical vapor deposition. We could obtain pseudomorphic and highly strained layer even upto 100 nm of InGaN film as confirmed by X-ray reciprocal space mapping and Raman spectra. To probe the validity of those InGaN layers for solar cell applications, optical transmittance measurements were carried out and absorption properties were compared.

We fabricated nanowire-based ultraviolet (UV) light emitting diodes (LEDs) consisting of ITO/p-NiO/n-ZnO nanowires/AZO/n-Si heterostructure by using a dimensional transition technique of 1D to 2D. The p-type NiO layer was directly deposited on the ZnO nanowire arrays, followed by the growth of ITO electrode, resulting in the full coverage of the top surface of the ZnO nanowires and their electrical interconnection. The current–voltage curve of the LED showed obvious rectifying characteristics with a threshold voltage of about 8 V and low leakage current. Under forward bias, this device exhibited UV electroluminescence located at around 380 nm coming from band edge transition of the ZnO and the broad visible emission peak around 450–650 nm was attributed to the n-ZnO defect level emission. The origin of the UV and visible emission were discussed in term of the energy band diagram of the p-NiO/n-ZnO nanowires heterjunctions.