ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the impacts of alloying with nitrogen on structural properties and recombination processes in GaNAs nanowires (NW). It discusses possible innovative applications of these structures in advanced nano-emitters, where the incorporation of nitrogen induces the formation of self-assembled quantum dot-like states embedded in the NWs. The structural properties of these NWs were investigated by transmission electron microcopy. An important material parameter that affects performance of the NW-based devices is carrier lifetime. The non-radiative lifetime is largely affected by the material quality both in bulk and within near-surface regions. The contribution of the surface-related recombination is known to be especially severe in GaAs-based NW structures due to a large surface-to-volume ratio and the presence of surface states participating in the non-radiative recombination processes. The revealed optical properties of the GaNAs-based NW structures may be attractive for future optoelectronic applications in advanced nano-sized light emitters which could be integrated with silicon technology.
