Nitrogen-doped gallium phosphide nanowires were directly synthesized via a sublimation of ball-milled powders under ammonia flow. The average diameter of the nanowires is 40 nm and the length is about 500 mum. They consist of single-crystalline zinc blende structured crystals with the [1 1 1] growth direction. The photoluminescence shows the typical isoelectronic bound exciton peaks in the range 2.1-2.25 eV. The concentration of the doped nitrogen atoms is estimated to be about 10(18) cm(-3). (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.