Raman scattering studies of individual polar semiconducting nanowires: phonon splitting and antenna effects

Results from Raman scattering experiments on individual crystalline GaP nanowires are presented which indicate that the shape of the nanowire, i.e., the high aspect ratio, may be responsible for two new phenomena involving optical phonons: (1) a shape-inducedsplitting of both the longitudinal optical (LO) and transverse optical (TO) phonons at the center of the Brillouin zone (q=0), and (2) a Raman scattering “antenna” effect which masks the normal Raman polarization selection rules. We suggest that (1) stems from the asymmetry in the long range dipolar sums that control the electromagnetic LO-TOsplitting, and we identify the Raman antenna effect (2) with the internal electric field created by Mie resonances in the nanowire driven by the incident laser field. Although these effects are reported here for GaP, they are expected to be general effects observable in many semiconducting nanowire systems.