Catalyzed oxidation for nanowire growth

Abstract

A simple, low-cost and scalable route to substrate-supported nanowire growth is reported based on catalyzed oxidation. The process shares common features with popular catalyzed nanowire growth techniques such as vapor–liquid–solid (VLS), vapor–solid–solid (VSS), or vapor–quasi-solid (VQS) that use catalyst nanoparticles to direct the deposition of reactants from the vapor phase. Catalyzed oxidation for nanowire growth (CONG) utilizes catalyzed anion (e.g. O2) reduction from the vapor phase and metal (e.g. Fe) oxidation from the substrate to produce oxide nanowires (e.g. Fe3O4). The approach represents a new class of nanowire growth methodology that may be applied to a broad range of systems. CONG does not require expensive chemical vapor deposition or physical vapor deposition equipment and can be implemented at intermediate temperatures (400–600 °C) in a standard laboratory furnace. This work also demonstrates a passive approach to catalyst deposition that allows the process to be implemented simply with no lithography or physical vapor deposition steps. This effort validates the general approach by synthesizing MnO, Fe3O4, WO3, MgO, TiO2, ZnO, ReO3, and NiO nanowires via CONG. The process produces single crystalline nanowires that can be grown to high aspect ratio and as high-density nanowire forests. Applications of the as-grown Fe3O4 and ReO3 nanowires for lithium ion battery systems are demonstrated to display high areal energy density and power.