Fabrication of Eutectic Ga-In Nanowire Arrays Based on Plateau–Rayleigh Instability

Abstract

We have developed a simple method of fabricating liquid metal nanowire (NW) arrays of eutectic GaIn (EGaIn). When an EGaIn droplet anchored on a flat substrate is pulled perpendicular to the substrate surface at room temperature, an hourglass shaped EGaIn is formed. At the neck of the shape, based on the Plateau–Rayleigh instability, the EGaIn bridge with periodically varying thicknesses is formed. Finally, the bridge is broken down by additional pulling. Then, EGaIn NW is formed at the surface of the breakpoint. In addition, EGaIn NW arrays are found to be fabricated by pulling multiple EGaIn droplets on a substrate simultaneously. The average diameter of the obtained NW was approximately 0.6 μm and the length of the NW depended on the amount of droplet anchored on the substrate. The EGaIn NWs fabricated in this study may be used for three-dimensional wiring for integrated circuits, the tips of scanning probe microscopes, and field electron emission arrays.