Manipulation of polarization anisotropy in bare InAs and InAs/GaSb core-shell nanowires

In this article, we compare the excitation wavelength dependence of the polarization anisotropy (?) of an internal field induced Raman scattering signal in individual bare InAs and InAs/GaSb core-shell nanowires. The measured value of ? of the Raman scattering intensity for InAs/GaSb core-shell nanowires has a minimum at ~500 nm, while for the bare InAs nanowire, the value of ? monotonically increases over the same range of wavelengths. We have modeled the scattering intensities of both systems by considering the joint role of Raman tensor components and confinement of electromagnetic radiation inside the nanowire at two orthogonal polarization configurations of the electromagnetic radiation. The theoretical results allow us to understand that the observed behavior of ? is related to the nanowire geometry and to the difference in the wavelength dependence of the dielectric constants of InAs and GaSb. This work shows the possibility of manipulating the polarization anisotropy by selecting suitable diameters and materials for the core and the shell of the nanowire. We also report a six-fold increase in Raman scattering intensity due to the GaSb shell on InAs nanowires.