Synthesis, characterization and self-assembly of silver nanowires

Silver nanowires with five-fold symmetric cross-section

“…It has been suggested that these well-defined Ag nanowires have truncated decahedron structure with [1 1 0] growth direction, bounded by five [1 0 0] planes and capped by ten [1 1 1] planes [13,14]. Our previous report on the Ag nanowires also confirmed the above results [15]. However, a misfit angle of 7.5, i.e.…”

“…A previous report from our group has demonstrated evidence of the structure of a pentagonal cross-section of Ag nanowires (see the inset in Fig. 1(a)) [15]. To obtain structure information of Ag nanowires, XRD detection was conducted.…”

“…Previous reports have proposed that Ag nanowires hold truncated decahedron structure with five-fold twinning [15,17]. To further investigate the five-fold symmetry of the Ag nanowires in detail, cross-sectional samples of the Ag nanowires for TEM and SAED were prepared by embedding the Ag nanowires in epoxy and then microtoming.…”

“…The Ag nanowires were synthesized by polyol reduction using PVP as the capping agent [15]. The whole preparation procedure is briefly given as follows.…”

Electron Diffraction and HRTEM Structure Analysis of Nanowires

“…The important role of twinning in determining the habit of the final morphology will also be discussed. One interesting feature of silver, gold, and copper pentagonal cross-section nanowires, is their remarkable structure (Gao et al, 2003;Giersig et al, 2004;Hofmeister et al, 2002;Sun et al, 2002;Zhao et al, 2005). It has been proposed that this structure evolved from a multi-twin decahedral nanoparticle growing in the [110] direction by stabilizing more effectively the newly formed 100 facets than the 111 facets and their electron diffraction patterns present "forbidden" spots.…”