Controlling the shape of a tapered nanowire: lessons from the Burton-Cabrera-Frank model

The propagation of sidewall steps during the growth of nanowires is calculated in the frame of the Burton-Cabrera-Frank model. The stable shape of the nanowire comprises a cylinder section on top of a cone section: their characteristics are obtained as a function of the radius of the catalyst-nanowire area, the desorption-limited diffusion length of adatoms on the terraces, and the sticking of adatoms at step edges. The comparison with experimental data allows us to evaluate these last two parameters for InP and ZnTe nanowires; it reveals a different behavior for the two materials, related to a difference by an order of magnitude of the desorption-limited diffusion length.