Helical Growth of Ultrathin Gold-Copper Nanowires.

Mendoza-Cruz, Rubén; Bazán-Díaz, Lourdes; Velázquez-Salazar, J Jesús; Plascencia-Villa, Germán; Bahena-Uribe, Daniel; Reyes-Gasga, José; Romeu, David; Guisbiers, Grégory et al. · Nano Lett · 2016

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

In this work, we report the synthesis and detailed structural characterization of novel helical gold-copper nanowires. The nanowires possess the Boerdijk-Coxeter-Bernal structure, based on the pile up of octahedral, icosahedral, and/or decahedral seeds. They are self-assembled into a coiled manner as individual wires or into a parallel-ordering way as groups of wires. The helical nanowires are ultrathin with a diameter of less than 10 nm and variable length of several micrometers, presenting a high density of twin boundaries and stacking faults. To the best of our knowledge, such gold-copper nanowires have never been reported previously.

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