Melting of indium, tin, and zinc nanowires embedded in the pores of anodic aluminum oxide

Abstract

The melting temperature of metal nanostructures embedded in the matrix is an essential thermodynamic characteristic and a key parameter of the processes of their transformation into semiconductor structures. In this work, great attention is paid to the investigation of the behavior of one-dimensional metal nanocrystals near the melting point. For this purpose, the arrays of In, Sn, and Zn nanowires with different diameters have been electrochemically grown in the pores of anodic aluminum oxide (AAO), which is confirmed by the results of the microscopy and the phase X-ray diffraction analysis. The melting of nanowire arrays with different diameters has been investigated by means of differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). Aside from the expected melting temperature decrease, with decreasing the diameter of nanowires, it has been established that the melting peaks of nanostructure arrays have a complex shape that requires detailed elaboration in order to more accurately define the melting temperature. It is shown that the signal waveform while melting depends on geometric parameters of the structure, and the peak being mapped onto the DSC curve is the result of superposition of the melting peaks of nanowires with several characteristic dimensions. For the arrays of In, Sn, and Zn nanowires in AAO, there have been defined the melting temperature values according to the methodology offered, and there has been presented the dependence of the melting temperature decrease on the nanowires' diameter.