Inclination of polarized illumination increases symmetry of structures grown inorganic phototropism

Inclination of unpatterned, linearly polarized illumination in the plane of the electric field oscillation effected increased directional feature alignment and decreased off-axis order in Se-Te deposits generated by inorganic phototropic growth relative to that produced using normal incidence. Optically based growth simulations reproduced the experimental results indicating a photonic basis for the morphology change. Modeling of the light scattering at the growth interface revealed that illumination inclination enhances scattering that localizes the optical field along the polarization plane and suppresses cooperativity in defect-driven scattering. Thus, the symmetry of the deposited structures increased as the asymmetry of the illumination increased, as measured by the inclination of the illumination incidence away from the surface normal. Inorganic phototropic growth produces ordered, anisotropic semiconductor mesostructures via a template-free, light-mediated process. Asymmetric inclination of the input illumination counterintuitively increases the symmetry of the output structures.