Konig, DirkSmith, Sean2020-11-020108-7681http://hdl.handle.net/1885/213287Semiconductor nanowires (NWires) experience stress and charge transfer from their environment and impurity atoms. In response, the environment of a NWire experiences a NWire stress response which may lead to propagated strain and a change in the shape and size of the NWire cross section. Here, geometric number series are deduced for zincblende- (zb-) and diamond-structured NWires of diameter dWire to obtain the numbers of NWire atoms NWire(dWire[i]), bonds between NWire atoms Nbnd(dWire[i]) and interface bonds NIF(dWire[i]) for six high-symmetry zb NWires with the low-index faceting that occurs frequently in both bottom-up and top-down approaches of NWire processing. Along with these primary parameters, the specific lengths of interface facets, the crosssectional widths and heights and the cross-sectional areas are presented. The fundamental insights into NWire structures revealed here offer a universal gauge and thus could enable major advancements in data interpretation and understanding of all zb- and diamond-structure-based NWires. This statement is underpinned with results from the literature on cross-section images from III–V core–shell NWire growth and on Si NWires undergoing self-limiting oxidation and etching. The massive breakdown of impurity doping due to self-purification is shown to occur for both Si NWires and Si nanocrystals (NCs) for a ratio of Nbnd/NWire = Nbnd/NNC = 1.94 0.01 using published experimental data.application/pdfen-AU© 2019 International Union of Crystallography201910.1107/S20525206190093512020-07-06