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Growth of single-crystalline tungsten nanowires by an alloy-catalyzed method at 850 °C

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Abstract

In this study, we report the growth of metallic tungsten nanowires induced by alloy catalysts (Fe–Ni) at a temperature of 850 °C. The synthesized tungsten nanowires have bottom diameters of 100 to 400 nm and tip diameters of <80 nm, and show a well-defined single-crystalline structure. The formation of the (Fe,Ni)-catalyzed W nanowires should be controlled by the vapor–solid–solid mechanism, rather than the traditional vapor–liquid–solid mechanism, because the growth temperature is significantly below the lowest eutectic temperature (1455 °C) of the Fe–Ni–W ternary system. Our study demonstrates the feasibility of synthesizing metallic nanowires via metal-catalyzed methods, which may be extended to the synthesis of some other metallic nanowires.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 50374082), the Australian Research Council (Grant No. DP0663304), the Australian Department of Education, Science and Training (Grant No. CH060063), and the Division of Materials Science and Engineering, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, United States Department of Energy (under Contract DE-AC05-00OR-22725 with UT-Battelle, LLC).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory for Powder Metallurgy, and School of Physics Science and Technology, Central South University, Changsha, 410083, People’s Republic of China

    Shiliang Wang, Yuehui He, Jian Xu, Yao Jiang & Baiyun Huang

  2. School of Engineering, and Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis, The University of Queensland, St. Lucia, Queensland, 4072, Australia

    Jin Zou & Yong Wang

  3. Materials Science and Engineering Department, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, 37886-2200, USA

    C.T. Liu & P.K. Liaw

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  1. Shiliang Wang
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  2. Yuehui He
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  3. Jian Xu
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  4. Yao Jiang
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  6. Jin Zou
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  7. Yong Wang
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  9. P.K. Liaw
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Correspondence to Yuehui He or Jin Zou.

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Wang, S., He, Y., Xu, J. et al. Growth of single-crystalline tungsten nanowires by an alloy-catalyzed method at 850 °C. Journal of Materials Research 23, 72–77 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1557/JMR.2008.0033

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