A sizeable change in the electronic properties of GaAs via strain engineering in lattice-mismatched core/shell nanowires

III-V compound semiconductors have fueled many breakthroughs in physics and technology owing to their direct band gap and high electron mobility. It has also been very important that these fundamental properties can be tailored in ternary or quaternary alloys by selecting the chemical composition appropriately. Here we explore the great possibilities for strain engineering in core/shell nanowires as an alternative route to tailor the properties of III-V semiconductors without changing their chemical composition. In particular, we demonstrate that the GaAs core in GaAs/InₓGa₁₋ₓAs or GaAs/InₓAl₁₋ₓAs core/shell nanowires can sustain unusually large misfit strains that would have been impossible in equivalent thin-film heterostructures, and undergoes a significant modification of its electronic properties. Core/shell nanowires were grown in the self-catalyzed mode on SiOₓ/Si(111) substrates by molecular beam epitaxy. Strain analysis was performed using synchrotron X-ray diffraction and Raman scattering spectroscopy, and showed that for a thin enough core, the magnitude and the spatial distribution of the built-in misfit strain can be regulated via the composition and the thickness of the shell. Beyond a critical shell thickness, we obtain a heavily tensile-strained core and an almost strain-free shell. The tensile strain of the core exhibits a predominantly-hydrostatic character and causes the reduction of the GaAs band gap energy in accordance with our theoretical predictions using deformation-potential theory and first-principle calculations. For 7 % of strain (x = 0.54), the band gap energy was reduced to 0.87 eV at 300 K, i.e. a remarkable reduction of 40 %. Signatures of valence-band splitting were also identified in polarization-resolved photoluminescence measurements, as a result of the strain anisotropy in GaAs. Presuming a reduced effective mass of electrons in the tensile-strained core of GaAs/InₓAl₁₋ₓAs nanowires (core diameter = 22 nm, x = 0.39 - 0.49), the corresponding electron mobility was measured by time-domain terahertz spectroscopy to be in the range of 4000 cm²/V·s at 300 K. These values are the highest reported, even in comparison to GaAs/AlₓGa₁₋ₓAs nanowires with double the core thickness. Our results demonstrate that strained GaAs in core/shell nanowires can resemble the electronic properties of InₓGa₁₋ₓAs, surmounting issues with phase separation, surface segregation or alloy disorder that typically exist in ternary alloys and limit the device performance.