Fig. 2.

Images and diffraction patterns of the Au/GaAs NWs. (Top) Stroboscopic image of the NW and its diffraction pattern (marked circle in the image). The diffraction pattern indicates a hexagonal WZ structure of GaAs. (Middle) Image and diffraction pattern of the tip region. Additional diffraction spots appeared besides the same ones as that in Top. These extra spots are from the cubic ZB segments, which can be seen from an enlarged image in Middle Left, Inset. (Scale bar, 50 nm.) (Bottom) Images of the NW at different tilting angles ranging from −10° to 50°. The dotted lines indicate the length measured from the tip to the reference point (marked by an arrow). At all angles, the NW is straight, suggesting that neither inclination nor breakage of the NW occurred after the laser pulse excitation.