title: Growth of silver nanowires on GaAs wafers.
abstract: Silver (Ag) nanowires with chemically clean surfaces have been directly grown on semi-insulating gallium arsenide (GaAs) wafers through a simple solution/solid interfacial reaction (SSIR) between the GaAs wafers themselves and aqueous solutions of silver nitrate (AgNO(3)) at room temperature. The success in synthesis of Ag nanowires mainly benefits from the low concentration of surface electrons in the semi-insulating GaAs wafers that can lead to the formation of a low-density of nuclei that facilitate their anisotropic growth into nanowires. The resulting Ag nanowires exhibit rough surfaces and reasonably good electric conductivity. These characteristics are beneficial to sensing applications based on single-nanowire surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) and possible surface-adsorption-induced conductivity variation.
authors.affiliation: Center for Nanoscale Materials, Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 South Cass Avenue, Argonne, Illinois 60439, USA. ygsun@anl.gov
authors.forename: Yugang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Sun
mesh_terms: D001152:Arsenicals / Q000737:chemistry*; D003460:Crystallization / Q000379:methods; D005708:Gallium / Q000737:chemistry*; D046911:Macromolecular Substances / Q000737:chemistry; D008422:Materials Testing; D008968:Molecular Conformation; D049329:Nanostructures / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D010316:Particle Size; D012834:Silver / Q000737:chemistry*; D013499:Surface Properties
chemical_list: D001152:Arsenicals; D046911:Macromolecular Substances; C043055:gallium arsenide; D012834:Silver; D005708:Gallium