Modeling GaN nanowire growth on silicon

We have developed a kinetic theory of the growth of self-induced GaN nanowires (NWs) in the vertical and lateral directions on substrates with amorphous sublayers. A model is constructed that can describe temporal evolution of the NW length and radius. The results of model calculations are compared to experimental data on temporal dependences of the length and radius of GaN nanowires grown on amorphous Si (x) N (y) sublayers on Si substrates. The comparison shows good agreement between the proposed theory and experiment. Conditions, for which the NW length and radius are described by power functions of the time and the NW length exhibits scaling superlinear dependence on the radius, are determined. DOI:10.1134/S1063785013010355