title: Thermal instabilities and Rayleigh breakup of ultrathin silver nanowires grown in helium nanodroplets.
abstract: Ag nanowires with diameters below 6 nm are grown within vortex containing superfluid helium nanodroplets and deposited onto a heatable substrate at cryogenic temperatures. The experimental setup allows an unbiased investigation of the inherent stability of pristine silver nanowires, which is virtually impossible with other methods due to chemical processes or templates involved in standard production routes. We demonstrate by experiment and by adaption of a theoretical model that initially continuous wires disintegrate into chains of spheres. This phenomenon is well described by a Rayleigh-like breakup mechanism when the substrate is heated to room temperature. Our findings clarify the recent discussions on the cause of the observed segmented patterns, where a breakup during deposition [Gomez et al., Phys. Rev. Lett., 2012, 108, 155302] or mechanisms intrinsic to the helium droplet mediated growth process [Spence et al., Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2014, 16, 6903] have been proposed. The experimental setup confirms the validity of previous suggestions derived from bulk superfluid helium experiments [Gordon et al., Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2014, 16, 25229] for the helium droplet system, and further allows a much more accurate determination of the breakup temperature.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Experimental Physics, Graz University of Technology, Petersgasse 16, A-8010 Graz, Austria. andreas.w.hauser@gmail.com wolfgang.ernst@tugraz.at.
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Volk
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Knez
authors.forename: Philipp
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Thaler
authors.forename: Andreas W
authors.initials: AW
authors.lastname: Hauser
authors.forename: Werner
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Grogger
authors.forename: Ferdinand
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Hofer
authors.forename: Wolfgang E
authors.initials: WE
authors.lastname: Ernst
mesh_terms: D006371:Helium / Q000737:chemistry*; D046529:Microscopy, Electron, Transmission; D053770:Nanowires / Q000737:chemistry*; D012834:Silver / Q000737:chemistry*; D013696:Temperature
chemical_list: D006371:Helium; D012834:Silver