Nanoparticles suppress fluid instabilities in the thermal drawing of ultralong nanowires

Injoo Hwang,Zeyi Guan,Chezheng Cao,Xiaochun Li,Chi On Chui,Wenliang Tang

doi:10.1038/s41467-020-19796-5

Injoo Hwang, Zeyi Guan + Show 4 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19796-5

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Abstract

Ultra-long metal nanowires and their facile fabrication have been long sought after as they promise to offer substantial improvements of performance in numerous applications. However, ultra-long metal ultrafine/nanowires are beyond the capability of current manufacturing techniques, which impose limitations on their size and aspect ratio. Here we show that the limitations imposed by fluid instabilities with thermally drawn nanowires can be alleviated by adding tungsten carbide nanoparticles to the metal core to arrive at wire lengths more than 30 cm with diameters as low as 170 nm. The nanoparticles support thermal drawing in two ways, by increasing the viscosity of the metal and lowering the interfacial energy between the boron silicate and zinc phase. This mechanism of suppressing fluid instability by nanoparticles not only enables a scalable production of ultralong metal nanowires, but also serves for widespread applications in other fluid-related fields.

Highlights

Ultra-long metal nanowires and their facile fabrication have been long sought after as they promise to offer substantial improvements of performance in numerous applications
Most crystalline metal nanowires with high aspect ratio are beyond the capability of current manufacturing techniques[11], due to the fluid instability induced by a low viscosity of molten metals and the large interfacial energy with the cladding, despite that reliable drawing of indefinitely long amorphous semiconductor and polymer nanowires has been achieved[14,15]
While low-meltingtemperature Pb–such as tin (Sn) alloys and Bi nanowires with a diameter down to 50 nm were reported, no experimental evidence was provided to support their continuity over the claimed drawn length[25]

Summary

Introduction

Ultra-long metal nanowires and their facile fabrication have been long sought after as they promise to offer substantial improvements of performance in numerous applications. 0 0 100 200 300 400 500 Nanometers speed and temperature, could successfully produce ultra-long semiconductors nanowires of 10 nm in diameter by thermal drawing, due to their high viscosity and low interfacial energy with cladding.

Results

Conclusion