Elemental or compound semiconductors on metal substrates and methods of growing them are provided. The methods can include the steps of: (i) providing a metal substrate; (ii) adding an interlayer on a surface of the metal substrate, and (iii) growing semiconductor nanowires on the interlayer using a semiconductor epitaxy growth system to form the elemental or compound semiconductor. The method can include direct growth of high quality group III-V and group III-N based materials in the form of nanowires and nanowires-based devices on metal substrates. The nanowires on all-metal scheme greatly simplifies the fabrication process of nanowires based high power light emitters.