Widely tunable GaAs bandgap via strain engineering in core/shell nanowires with large lattice mismatch.

The realisation of photonic devices for different energy ranges demands materials with different bandgaps, sometimes even within the same device. The optimal solution in terms of integration, device performance and device economics would be a simple material system with widely tunable bandgap and compatible with the mainstream silicon technology. Here, we show that gallium arsenide nanowires grown epitaxially on silicon substrates exhibit a sizeable reduction of their bandgap by up to 40% when overgrown with lattice-mismatched indium gallium arsenide or indium aluminium arsenide shells. Specifically, we demonstrate that the gallium arsenide core sustains unusually large tensile strain with hydrostatic character and its magnitude can be engineered via the composition and the thickness of the shell. The resulted bandgap reduction renders gallium arsenide nanowires suitable for photonic devices across the near-infrared range, including telecom photonics at 1.3 and potentially 1.55 μm, with the additional possibility of monolithic integration in silicon-CMOS chips. Designing core/shell nanowires with desired optoelectronic properties of III-V semiconductor alloys remains a challenge. Here, the authors report an engineering strategy to surmount strain-induced difficulties in the growth achieving highly strained cores with a sizeable change in their band gap.