Optical properties of heavily doped GaAs nanowires and electroluminescent nanowire structures

We present GaAs electroluminescent nanowire structures fabricated by metal organic vapor phase epitaxy. Electroluminescent structures were realized in both axial pn-junctions in single GaAs nanowires and free-standing nanowire arrays with a pn-junction formed between nanowires and substrate, respectively. The electroluminescence emission peak from single nanowire pn-junctions at 10 K was registered at an energy of around 1.32 eV and shifted to 1.4 eV with an increasing current. The line is attributed to the recombination in the compensated region present in the nanowire due to the memory effect of the vapor-liquid-solid growth mechanism. Arrayed nanowire electroluminescent structures with a pn-junction formed between nanowires and substrate demonstrated at 5 K a strong electroluminescence peak at 1.488 eV and two shoulder peaks at 1.455 and 1.519 eV. The main emission line was attributed to the recombination in the p-doped GaAs. The other two lines correspond to the tunneling-assisted photon emission and band-edge recombination in the abrupt junction, respectively. Electroluminescence spectra are compared with the micro-photoluminescence spectra taken along the single p-, n- and single nanowire pn-junctions to find the origin of the electroluminescence peaks, the distribution of doping species and the sharpness of the junctions.