Directed growth of diameter-tunable nanowires

This study characterizes a method for controlling the nanowire diameter in the directed electrochemical nanowire assembly technique, where alternating voltages applied to electrodes in simple salt solutions induce the crystallization of metallic wires. Dendritic solidification is identified as an important component of this technique. A characteristic of dendritic solidification is that the growth velocity and tip radius are anti-correlated. This relationship is exploited here to realize diameter-tunable nanowire growth. The experimental parameter that provides this control is ω, the frequency of the alternating voltage. Increasing ω effectively steepens the metal cation concentration gradient at the wire-solution interface, thereby increasing the growth velocity of the wire. For indium wires, increasing ω from 0.5 to 3.5 MHz increases their growth velocity from 11 to 78 μm s-1 and reduces their diameter from 770 to 114 nm. Gold wires exhibit diameter-tunability that ranges from 150 nm to 45 nm. Thus, it is possible to tune the wire diameter from the microscale down to the nanoscale. Moreover, this control is a consequence of non-stationary dendritic growth, which distinguishes this process from most previously studied examples of dendritic solidification