Synthesis of GaN particles in porous matrices by chemical vapor infiltration of single molecule precursors

The filling of porous materials like molecular sieves by semiconducting materials is explored as a concept to fabricate novel mesoscopic systems such as quantum wires, quantum dots for possible optoelectronic and photonic applications. The dimension and arrangement of the incorporated material is dictated by the shape, size and order of crystallinity of the pores of the template that is being used. GaN is one such interesting semiconducting material whose fabrication in thin film form is well developed. However GaN in the form of nanoparticles has not been explored with much success and there are very few reports so far. This work represents a single source precursor approach for the synthesis of GaN nanoparticles by chemical vapour infiltration (CVI). The formation of GaN using MCM-41 as a porous host template and the characterisation of the nanoparticles by N₂ sorption studies (BET), XRD, TEM, EDX, ⁷¹Ga NMR, elemental analysis will be addressed in this paper.