Metallic nanoparticles (NPs) have received recently considerable interest of photonic and photovoltaic communities. In this work, we report the optoelectronic properties of gold NPs (Au-NPs) obtained by depositing very thin gold layers on glass substrates through thermal evaporation electron-beam assisted process. The effect of mass thickness of the layer was evaluated. The polycrystalline Au-NPs, with grain sizes of 14 and 19 nm tend to be elongated in one direction as the mass thickness increase. A 2 nm layer deposited at 250°C led to the formation of Au-NPs with 10-20 nm average size, obtained by SEM images, while for a 5 nm layer the wide size elongates from 25 to 150 nm with a mean at 75 nm. In the near infrared region was observed an absorption enhancement of amorphous silicon films deposited onto the Au-NPs layers with a corresponding increase in the PL peak for the same wavelength region.

We report an investigation on the morphological, structural, and optical properties of large size wurtzite GaAs nanowires, low doped with Mg, grown on GaAs(111)B and Si(111) substrates. A higher density of vertical nanowires was observed when grown upon GaAs(111)B. Very thin zinc-blende segments are observed along the axis of the nanowires with a slightly higher linear density being found on the nanowires grown on Si(111). Low temperature cathodoluminescence and photoluminescence measurements reveal an emission in the range 1.40–1.52 eV related with the spatial localization of the charge carriers at the interfaces of the two crystalline phases. Mg related emission is evidenced by cathodoluminescence performed on the GaAs epilayer. However, no direct evidence for a Mg related emission is found for the nanowires. The excitation power dependency on both peak energy and intensity of the photoluminescence gives a clear evidence for the type II nature of the radiative transitions. From the temperature dependence on the photoluminescence intensity, non-radiative de-excitation channels with different activation energies were found. The fact that the estimated energies for the escape of the electron are higher in the nanowires grown on Si(111) suggests the presence of wider zinc-blende segments.