Fabrication, temperature-conductance and photoconductance characteristics of the macroscopic-long Ag2S nanowire bundle

Abstract

According to the macroscopic-long Ag nanowire bundle which is prepared by the solid-state ionics method, we fabricate a macroscopic-long Ag2S nanowire bundle using a gas-solid reaction. Their morphologies and components are characterized by the SEM, TEM, EDS and XPS. Au paints as electrodes are coated on both ends of a cm-long Ag2S nanowire bundle and then connected to an external circuit. The transport properties of the Ag2S nanowire bundle are studied at different temperatures or under the light irradiation of different wavelengths. Without light irradiation, as temperature T increases from 144 K to 380 K, the dark conductance increases nonlinearly with T. At room temperature, the significant positive photoconductivity induced by the 532 nm or 1064 nm laser is observed. These results demonstrate that Ag2S nanowire is a kind of ideal material for making the nanoscale temperature and photoelectric sensors.