Quantitative study of GaAs nanowires catalyzed by Au film of different thicknesses

In this letter, we quantitatively investigated epitaxial GaAs nanowires catalyzed by thin Au films of different thicknesses on GaAs (111)B substrates in a metal-organic chemical vapor deposition reactor. Prior to nanowire growth, the de-wetting of Au thin films to form Au nanoparticles on GaAs (111)B in AsH3 ambient at different temperatures is investigated. It is found that with increasing film thickness, the size of the Au nanoparticles increases while the density of the nanoparticles reduces. Furthermore, higher annealing temperature produces larger Au nanoparticles for a fixed film thickness. As expected, the diameters and densities of the as-grown GaAs nanowires catalyzed by these thin Au films reflect these trends.