Versatility of electrochemically grown dendrites in the undergraduate laboratory

Abstract

We describe an experiment to fabricate atomic-scale contacts using electrochemically grown silver wires. The formation of a single-wire junction is directly observed and captured by an optical microscope, while electrical conductance of the wire, simultaneously recorded, is shown to be quantized. Further, a diffusion-limited aggregate (DLA) simulation is performed to compare the observed fractal formed by the silver dendrites. Our experiment directly exposes undergraduate students to exciting contemporary physics ranging from atomic-scale switches to fractal formation, all on a single experimental platform.