In this paper, we report experimental results regarding highly strained InP and TnAs/InP quantum nanostructures grown on vicinal GaAs (001) substrate with 7 degrees miscut towards (110) orientation by MOCVD using TBA and TBP as group V sources. Formation of well-aligned wire nanostructures has been observed, which may be attributed to the effects of multi-atomic steps formed during GaAs buffer layer growth. We also observed strong photoluminescence from these nanostructures even for the type 11 band gap alignment of the InP/GaAs quantum wires. Our results show a possible way for fabricating low-dimensional quantum nanostructures with band gap engineering. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.