With many traditional semiconductor device fabrication techniques rapidly approaching fundamental physical limits, new paradigms are required for continued progress. One particularly promising avenue of research is the bottom-up synthesis of nanostructures as a framework for next-generation device designs. Beyond miniaturization, the bottom-up approach to material synthesis enables novel geometries and heterostructures that are otherwise unobtainable by conventional fabrication methods. Of particular significance for future optoelectronic device design is the realization of heterostructures formed between novel high mobility, direct bandgap compound semiconductors and more conventional electronic materials.

In this final PhD presentation I will use some applications of the element zinc to step through various opportunities and challenges arising from the bottom-up synthesis of semiconductor nanostructures by metalorganic vapour phase epitaxy. The application of zinc in its traditional role as III-V dopant will be firstly considered in relation to the doping of nanowires grown by the vapour-liquid-solid method. I will then discuss how zinc can act as a morphological agent to produce twinning superlattices in III-V nanowires and how zinc doping can enable single nanowire lasers. I will conclude the presentation by introducing the growth of various novel Zn-V semiconductor nanostructures and discussing how these different threads can be brought together to produce future optoelectronic designs.