Templateless room-temperature assembly of nanowire networks from nanoparticles.
We demonstrate a new, room-temperature approach to assemble two-dimensional and three-dimensional networks of gold nanowires by agitating nanoparticles in a toluene-aqueous mixture, without the use of templates. The nanowires have a uniform diameter of about 5 nm and consist of coalesced face-centered cubic nanocrystals. Toluene molecules passivate the gold surfaces during nanoparticle coalescence, rendering the nanowires hydrophobic and enabling their transfer into the toluene layer. Such templateless low-temperature assembly of mesostructures from nanoscale building blocks open up new possibilities for creating porous self-supporting nanocatalysts, nanowires for device interconnection, and low-density high-strength nanofillers for composites.
Department of Materials Science & Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York 12180, USA. ramanath@rpi.edu
G
G
Ramanath
J
J
D'Arcy-Gall
T
T
Maddanimath
A V
AV
Ellis
P G
PG
Ganesan
R
R
Goswami
A
A
Kumar
K
K
Vijayamohanan