Nanowires (NWs) are filamentary crystals with diameters of tens of nanometers and several microns in length. The great interest attracted by semiconductor NWs has been triggered by the growing demand for compact and powerful nanoscale devices, where NWs may act as both interconnects and functionalized components. A lot of emphasis in today research in NWs is put on the engineering of complex quantum structures in NWs, for they encode new functionalities and/or enhance existing performances.

This project aims at developing unexplored strategies for embedding site-controlled quantum structures, like quantum rings and quantum dots, in III-V NWs and at finding fast and effective routes to engineer the physical properties of NWs. The pursued routes will involve mainly post-growth hydrogen implantation, thus allowing to achieve different NW properties on demand with no need to change and re-optimize NW growth conditions. By using the proposed approach, we aim at obtaining NWs with desired photonic, magnetic, and thermoelectric properties, probed by photoluminescence, magneto-photoluminescence, and Raman spectroscopies.

Remarkably, the changes in the NW properties will be reversible, as hydrogen can be removed by thermal or laser annealing.