Aurélie Pierret

Growth, structural and optical properties of AlGaN nanowires in the whole composition range

We report on the growth of AlxGa1-xN nanowires by plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy for x in the 0.3-0.8 range. Based on a combination of macro- and micro-photoluminescence, Raman spectroscopy, x-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy experiments, it is shown that the structural and optical properties of AlGaN NWs are governed by the presence of compositional fluctuations associated with strongly localized electronic states. A growth model is proposed, which suggests that, depending on growth temperature and metal adatom density, macroscopic composition fluctuations are mostly of kinetic origin and are directly related to the nucleation of the AlGaN nanowire section on top of the GaN nanowire base which is used as a substrate.

Excitonic recombinations in hBN: from bulk to exfoliated layers

Hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) and graphite are structurally similar but with very different properties. Their combination in graphene-based devices is now of intense research focus, and it becomes particularly important to evaluate the role played by crystalline defects on their properties. In this paper, the cathodoluminescence (CL) properties of hexagonal boron nitride crystallites are reported and compared to those of nanosheets mechanically exfoliated from them. First, the link between the presence of structural defects and the recombination intensity of trapped excitons, the so-called D series, is confirmed. Low defective h-BN regions are further evidenced by CL spectral mapping (hyperspectral imaging), allowing us to observe new features in the near-band-edge region, tentatively attributed to phonon replicas of exciton recombinations. Second, the h-BN thickness was reduced down to six atomic layers, using mechanical exfoliation, as evidenced by atomic force microscopy. Even at these low thicknesses, the luminescence remains intense and exciton recombination energies are not strongly modified with respect to the bulk, as expected from theoretical calculations, indicating extremely compact excitons in h-BN.