Oriented bicrystalline GaN nanowire Arrays suitable for field emission applications

A study has fabricated oriented bicrystalline GaN nanowire arrays using a catalytic-carbon thermal reduction process and also investigated the field emission properties of these wires capped with catalyst particle arrays. The study has grown the wires on silicon substrates coated with a ZnO buffer layer under an atmosphere of NH3 and also investigated future structural characterization of these GaN nanowires by selected area electron diffraction (SAED). SAED patterns taken from the different areas of the nanowires and HRTEM observations revealed peculiar bicrystalline structure composed of (001) planes and the twin angle is 124°. The X-ray energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS) analysis investigated the chemical composition of the GaN nanowires that confirmed the only presence of Ga and N elements. The field emission measurements also indicated that the wires capped with catalyst particle arrays have good potential applications in field emission nanodevices.