title: A story told by a single nanowire: optical properties of wurtzite GaAs.
abstract: The optical properties of the wurtzite (WZ) GaAs crystal phase found in nanowires (NWs) are a highly controversial topic. Here, we study high-quality pure WZ GaAs/AlGaAs core-shell NWs grown by Au-assisted molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) with microphotoluminescence spectroscopy (μ-PL) and (scanning) transmission electron microscopy on the very same single wire. We determine the room temperature (294 K) WZ GaAs bandgap to be 1.444 eV, which is ∼20 meV larger than in zinc blende (ZB) GaAs, and show that the free exciton emission at 15 K is at 1.516 eV. On the basis of time- and temperature-resolved μ-PL results, we propose a Γ(8) conduction band symmetry in WZ GaAs. We suggest a method for quantifying the optical quality of NWs, taking into consideration the difference between the room and low temperature integrated PL intensity, and demonstrate that Au-assisted GaAs/AlGaAs core-shell NWs can have high PL brightness up to room temperature.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electronics and Telecommunications, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway.
authors.forename: Lyubomir
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Ahtapodov
authors.forename: Jelena
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Todorovic
authors.forename: Phillip
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Olk
authors.forename: Terje
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Mjåland
authors.forename: Patrick
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Slåttnes
authors.forename: Dasa L
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Dheeraj
authors.forename: Antonius T J
authors.initials: AT
authors.lastname: van Helvoort
authors.forename: Bjørn-Ove
authors.initials: BO
authors.lastname: Fimland
authors.forename: Helge
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Weman