Accomplishing control of the crystal phases in III-V semiconductor nanowires (NWs) is important for applications in future advanced nano-devices. In this work, we report on the growth of both zinc blende (ZB) and wurtzite (WZ) GaAs in self-catalyzed GaAs and GaAs/GaAsSb axial heterostructured NWs on Si (111) substrates by the vapor-liquid-solid technique using molecular beam epitaxy. The self-catalyzed GaAs NWs usually adopt the ZB phase. However, by growing GaAs NWs with short GaAsSb axial inserts, the crystal phase of GaAs can be changed from ZB below the GaAsSb insert, to WZ above. This crystal phase change in GaAs can be explained in terms of a change in the contact angle of the Ga droplet which changes the fraction of the triple-phase-line in contact with the edge of the NW top facet and therefore affects the probability of nucleation for ZB and WZ phases. In addition, by growing ZB GaAs after the insert using a flux interruption, we demonstrate the growth of all combinations of crystal phases of the GaAs segments on both sides of the GaAsSb insert. This understanding has also enabled us to achieve the growth of WZ phase in GaAs NWs as well as a ZB-WZ-ZB GaAs NW heterostructure, by changing the Ga droplet contact angle, without growing a GaAsSb insert. The contact angle was controlled by introducing different flux interruptions and tuning the Will flux ratio. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.