General Synthetic Strategies for III-V Nanowires

III-V semiconductor nanowires are expected to play a significant role in future nanoscale electronic and optoelectronic devices. In this chapter, we attempt to review the general synthetic strategies for III-V compound nanowires. We first summarize various III-V nanowire growth techniques such as chemical vapor deposition, laser ablation, metal-organic chemical vapor deposition, molecular beam epitaxy, chemical beam epitaxy, hydride vapour phase epitaxy, wafer annealing, and low-temperature solution methods. Subsequently, we discuss mechanisms involved to generate III-V nanowires from different synthetic schemes and conditions, including vapor-liquid-solid, vapor-solid-solid, solution-liquid-solid, vapor-solid (self-catalytic, oxide-assisted, and axial screw dislocation), ligand-aided solution-solid, and reactive Si-assisted growth.

Keywords: III-V compounds, semiconductor, nanowires, synthetic strategy, growth technique, growth mechanism.