Single‐Crystalline Gallium Nitride Microspindles: Synthesis, Characterization, and Thermal Stability

This paper describes a facile procedure for synthesizing high‐quality gallium nitride microspindles on a large scale using a solid‐state reaction of GaI3, NaNH2, and NH4Cl in a sealed system at 500 °C for 6 h. The structures, compositions, and morphologies of the as‐synthesized products are derived from X‐ray powder diffraction (XRD), X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and field‐emission scanning electron microscopy (FE‐SEM). The selected‐area electron diffraction (SAED) patterns and high‐resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) images show that the as‐synthesized GaN spindles are composed of many single‐crystalline platelets. The GaN microspindles show different optical properties depending on their shape (e.g., nanowires or nanoparticles) in photoluminescence (PL) emission spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy. The possible growth mechanism of GaN microspindles is controlled by linear kinetics with a driving force proportional to the difference between a local supersaturation and an equilibrium chemical potential. Furthermore, the thermal stability of the GaN microspindles is investigated under various annealing conditions and discussed on the basis of additional TEM and XRD analyses.