Self-assembled flower-like nanostructures of InN and GaN grown by plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy

• Published in: Bulletin of materials science Vol. 33; no. 3; pp. 221 - 226
• Main Authors: Kumar, Mahesh, Bhat, T. N., Rajpalke, M. K., Roul, B., Misra, P., Kukreja, L. M., Sinha, Neeraj, Kalghatgi, A. T., Krupanidhi, S. B.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: India Springer-Verlag 01-06-2010; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Chemical composition; Chemistry and Materials Science; Droplets; Engineering; Epitaxial growth; Excitons; Gallium nitrides; Indium nitride; Materials Science; Molecular beam epitaxy; Nanocomposites; Nanomaterials; Nanostructure; Optical properties; Photoelectrons; Photoluminescence; Scanning electron microscopy; Self-assembly; Silicon substrates; Temperature dependence; X ray photoelectron spectroscopy; X ray powder diffraction; X-rays; nano-flowers; Nitrides; RF-MBE; photoluminescence
• ISSN: 0250-4707; 0973-7669
• DOI: 10.1007/s12034-010-0034-8

Nanosized hexagonal InN flower-like structures were fabricated by droplet epitaxy on GaN/Si(111) and GaN flower-like nanostructure fabricated directly on Si(111) substrate using radio frequency plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy. Powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were used to study the crystallinity and morphology of the nanostructures. Moreover, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and photoluminescence (PL) were used to investigate the chemical compositions and optical properties of nano-flowers, respectively. Activation energy of free exciton transitions in GaN nano-flowers was derived to be ∼28.5 meV from the temperature dependent PL studies. The formation process of nano-flowers is investigated and a qualitative mechanism is proposed.