Here, the intensive study of microstructures reveals some novel characteristics in the remaining two groups of kinks in InP NWs, i.e., approximately 90° kinks and 170° kinks. As presented in Figure 4a, an approximately 90° kink can be clearly observed. The inset gives its corresponding SAED pattern, in which each diffraction spot indicated by white arrows was split into adjacent irregular spots. It indicates that the

crystal orientation makes slight changes in this area. It is evidenced in Figure 4b that the amorphous regions pointed by arrows are firstly observed in the approximately 90° kink, where the crystal orientation is disordered. This result could guide us presenting reasonable explanations for the formation of approximately 90° kinks. In crystallography, it is not easier to form an approximately Selleck ZD1839 90° angle by the glide of 111 planes. PR-171 in vitro Therefore, in order to produce such shape, the change of crystal lattice becomes reasonable. selleck inhibitor It is known that amorphorization could distort the crystal lattice and break the barrier for the transition of morphology in the

growing process. As a result, the growth of NWs would become more flexible, which is beneficial to the formation of approximately 90° kinks. Figure 4 BF image with corresponding SAED pattern and HRTEM image of approximately 90° kink in InP NWs. (a) BF image of the kink of approximately 90° in InP NWs. The inset is SAED pattern corresponding to the kink in which the diffraction spots indicated by white arrows are split into irregular spots. (b) HRTEM image of the selected area in (a). The observed amorphous regions are pointed by arrows. As for the slight

bendings, i.e., approximately 170° kinks, careful examinations show that the from small-angle boundary exists in the bending area, being rarely observed in III-V semiconductor NWs [16]. As depicted in Figure 5a, the InP NWs are slightly bent in which planar defects could be easily observed. Furthermore, as given in Figure 5b, a small-angle boundary was clearly seen in the selected area of Figure 5a. The extra atomic planes are inserted as indicated by arrows. This result is similar to that observed in Au NWs [21]. In the growing process, the NWs are likely to be affected by the disturbance of growth conditions, such as the gas flow fluctuation. As a result, the atomic arrangement is likely to collapse and tend to reconstruct in order to accommodate the disturbance effect, which causes the formation of small-angle boundary. The inserted extra atomic planes could generate unbalanced internal stress for the growth of the upper side and lower side of InP NWs shown in Figure 5b. Consequently, the InP NWs show slight bending. In addition, depending on the simulation of Cao et al. [22], the motion of dislocations along the well-defined slip systems can be restricted by twin boundaries (TBs).