Synthesis of GaAs nanowires with very small diameters and their optical properties with the radial quantum-confinement effect

grew the GaAs nanowires by using size-selective gold particles with nominal diameters of 5, 10, 20, 40, and 60 nm. The diameter-controlled nanowires enable us to observe blueshifts of the free exitononic emission peak from individual nanowires with decreasing gold-particle size due to the two-dimensional radial quantum-confinement effect. We also analyze the absorption and emission polarization anisotropies of these bare GaAs quantum nanowires. (C) 2009 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3229886]