Surface science of free standing semiconductor nanowires

Due to the wide range of possible applications, there is a strong current interest in semiconductor nanowires, that began around the start of the millennia. As a result, a number of important new surface science challenges of both fundamental and practical nature have emerged. Surfaces govern important processes for nanowire growth, physical properties and the ability of nanowires to interact with their surroundings. However, experimental studies of nanowire surfaces are difficult as many important surface science tools are not well suited to access these highly one dimensional objects. Still, recent studies has shown that, by designing experiments in an appropriate fashion, it is possible to both uniquely contribute to the understanding of the seed particle driven growth of nanowires and to explore the surfaces of nanowires with crystal structures and materials combinations not found in the bulk. In this prospective, recent results obtained using surface sensitive electron microscopy/spectroscopy and scanning tunneling microscopy will be highlighted and future directions will be discussed.