MBE has retained prominence among InGaN nanowire techniques, as the precision with which it operates can easily be utilized in InGaN heterostructures that go beyond simple nanowires. Roshko et al. have recently employed plasma-assisted MBE as a mean to create catalyst-free GaN nanowires containing InGaN quantum disks, which would theoretically give many of the same optical properties of pure InGaN nanowires while reducing the strain and complexity still associated with InGaN.\cite{Roshko_2014} In a broad characterization study, Roshko et al. were able to produce GaN nanowires with quantum well thickness ranging from 3 to 60 nm, primarily by varying the beam equivalent pressure of the feed gallium and indium.

The versatility of MBE was further shown in a recent study by Wang, et al., who used it to fabricate color-tunable, phosphor-free InGaN nanowire LED arrays on patterned SiO\({_x}\)/Si substrates, something eminently applicable to current LED usage.\cite{Wang_2014} As in Guo synthesis, Wang et al were able to control the In composition sufficiently to produce InGaN with differing In concentrations. However, instead of changing the compositions of the nanowires themselves, they used MBE to produce GaN nanowires with ten embedded InGaN quantum dots, and used SiO\({_x}\) as a mask in between growing nanowires with InGaN quantum dots emitting red, green, and blue wavelengths. Thus they were able to create an array with multiple colors, but suitably interspersed to create white light.

Interestingly enough, these two approaches may have more in common than initially thought. Their function–to emit wavelengths in the InGaN band gap from wires that are largely GaN– is generally the same. Now, Deshpande et al. have investigated the nature of disk- and dot-in-a-wire InGaN/GaN heterostructures, and have shown that the quantum confinement of thin (2-4 nm) InGaN disks is similar to that of quantum dots.\cite{Deshpande_2015} This is due to the formation of “self-organized islands” within the disks, which behave as if they are quantum dots, a phenomenon that was interestingly not observed in GaN disk regions embedded within AlGaN nanowires.