Tellurium nanowire arrays synthesized by electrochemical and electrophoretic deposition
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G.W. Meng Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York 12180
L.D. Zhang Laboratory of Functional Nanomaterials and Nanostructures, Institute of Solid State Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei 230031, People’s Republic of China
P.M. Ajayan Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York 12180 (Received 2 April 2003; accepted 25 June 2003)
This article describes both electrochemical deposition and electrophoretic deposition of high-density tellurium (Te) nanowire arrays with wire diameters of 60 nm and lengths of 15–20 m in the nanochannels of anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) templates. The Te nanowires synthesized via electrochemical deposition (ECD) are generally single crystalline in nature with the wire longitudinal axis along the [001] direction, whereas those synthesized via electrophoretic deposition (EPD) show polycrystalline structures with numerous tiny Te crystallites packed randomly in the wires. The single-crystalline Te nanowires produced by the ECD route are believed to form under a near chemical equilibrium condition; however, the imposed transport and the rapid packing of Te nanocrystallites in the nanochannels of AAO template in external fields lead to polycrystalline Te nanowires in the EPD process. This comparative study of the Te nanowire formation in the nanochannels of AAO template will facilitate the tailoring of the growth of other inorganic nanowires of high quality.
I. INTRODUCTION
High-density and well-aligned nanowire arrays have attracted much interest recently for their potential applications in single-electron devices,1,2 high-density magnetic memories,3 nanoelectrodes,4 and field-emission and photoelectronic devices.5 Many approaches have been used to synthesize nanowire arrays, among which the template-based method is most efficient. The templatebased method is usually carried out with a combination of other techniques, such as chemical vapor deposition,6 electrochemical deposition, 7 sol-gel deposition, 8 and electrophoretic deposition.9,10 However, each technique has its own advantages and limitations and thus might give very different outcomes. Single-crystalline nanowires have great potential applications and have been fabricated by some approaches, while polycrystalline nanowires are favored for certain applications such a)
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J. Mater. Res., Vol. 18, No. 10, Oct 2003 Downloaded: 13 Mar 2015
as photovoltaics and lasers. To better control the crystalline structure and morphology of the nanowires synthesized in the nanochannels of anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) template, the growth kinetics should be clarified. Here we prepared Te nanowires by electrochemical deposition (ECD) and electrophoretic deposition (EPD). The crystalline structures and morphologies of Te nanowires synthesized by the above two approaches were compared, and the Te nanowire formation mechanisms in both cases were analyzed. The details of
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