Silver nanowires (AgNWs) have received much attention due to their excellent optical, electrical, and conductive properties. In this work, we provided a new perspective for investigating the property of AgNWs from a single nanowire level. Single Ag nanowire electrodes and single Pt@Ag nanowire electrodes were fabricated by a laser-assisted pulling technique and galvanic replacement reaction (GRR). The radius, length, and metal ratio of the nanowires are tunable as needed. The prepared nanowire exhibited excellent electrocatalytic activity toward the methanol electro-oxidation and high sensitivity for monitoring the reduction of 4-nitrothiophenol by recording SERS spectra. This work will help us deeply understand the catalytic performance at the single nanowire level and open a new perspective for nanomaterials research.

Understanding the kinetics and thermodynamics of electro-oxidation of metal nanostructures at single particles/electrodes level is extremely important. In this work, single silver nanoelectrodes with the radii down to 10 nm were fabricated by a laser-assisted pulling technique. Size-dependent voltammetry could be observed using prepared single silver nanoelectrodes with different radii, which involved a fast electron-transfer kinetics process through measuring electron-transfer rate and a favorable thermodynamics process from the negative potential shift with the decrease of radii. Our method provided a meaningful attempt to investigate electron-transfer kinetics and thermodynamics at single nanoparticles/nanoelectrodes level.

An electrochemical nanosensor was fabricated on a single gold nanoelectrode for thrombin sensing with high sensitivity via a signal amplification strategy.

Single Pt@AuNWEs were fabricated by a Cu UPD/Pt redox replacement technique, and were applied to monitoring H2O2 released from living cells.