Monitoring the formation of nanowires by line-of-sight quadrupole mass spectrometry: a comprehensive description of the temporal evolution of GaN nanowire ensembles.

We use line-of-sight quadrupole mass spectrometry to monitor the spontaneous formation of GaN nanowires on Si during molecular beam epitaxy. We find that the temporal evolution of nanowire ensembles is well described by a double logistic function. The analysis of the temporal evolution of nanowire ensembles, prepared under a wide variety of growth conditions, allows us to construct a growth diagram that can be used to predict the average delay time that precedes nanowire formation.