Coherent X-ray diffraction imaging meets ptychography to study core-shell-shell nanowires

We report on the results of coherent X-ray diffraction imaging (CXDI) and ptychography measurements of two individual core-shell-shell GaAs/(In,Ga)As/GaAs nanowires (NWs) grown by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) on patterned Si(111) substrate. CXDI at the axial GaAs 111 Bragg reflection was applied at different positions along the NW axis in order to characterize the NWs in terms of structural homogeneity along the radial directions. At each positon 3D reciprocal space maps have been recoded and inverted using phase retrieval algorithms. The CXDI were complemented by 2D ptychography measurements at GaAs 111 Bragg reflection probing the same NWs with respect to their structural homogeneity. Both methods provide structural homogeneity for NW1 and NW2 except at the bottom part of the NWs. In case of NW2 CXDI and ptychography show changes in the structure of the top part of the NW indicated by 60° rotation of the indicated three-fold rotational symmetry in the observed diffraction patterns and changes in the strain field reconstructed from ptychography.