Molecular beam epitaxy growth and optical properties of AlN nanowires

摘要

Growth of catalyst-free AlN nanowires has been achieved by plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy on SiO_2/Si (100), by taking advantage of Volmer-Weber growth mode of AlN on amorphous SiO_2. Using a combination of high resolution transmission electron microscopy and Raman spectroscopy, it is found that AlN nanowires are completely relaxed, which has been assigned to the compliant character of SiO_2. Elastic strain relaxation of AlN nanowires has been further confirmed by photoluminescence experiments, showing in addition that spectra are dominated by near-band edge emission.