Real-Time Observation of Collector Droplet Oscillations during Growth of Straight Nanowires

Kolı́bal, Miroslav; Vystavel, T.; Варга, П.; Šikola, Tomáš

doi:10.1021/nl404159x

Cited by 21 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…As a characteristic of the VLS mechanism, a metal catalyst, typically gold or silver, that mediates the mass transfer from the vapor phase to the growth front of a nanowire, is generally located at the tip of each growing nanowire . Recently, with the employment of in situ techniques, particularly in situ electron microscopy, significant breakthroughs have been achieved via real‐time observation of VLS growth kinetics, such as the revelation of heterogeneous nucleation, the observation of layer‐by‐layer growth mode, as well as the discovery of foreign metal catalyst loss channels . These findings are of fundamental interest in advancing our understanding of the VLS mechanism and in turn are beneficial for the controlled fabrication of 1D semiconductor nanowires.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

In Situ Scanning Electron Microscopy Observation of Growth Kinetics and Catalyst Splitting in Vapor–Liquid–Solid Growth of Nanowires

Huang

Weinberg

Meng

et al. 2015

Adv Funct Materials

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In situ observations during vapor–liquid–solid (VLS) growth of semiconductor nanowires in the chamber of an environmental scanning electron microscope (ESEM) are reported. For nanowire growth, a powder mixture of CdS and ZnS is used as a source material and silver nanoparticles as a metal catalyst. Through tracing growth kinetics of nanowires, it is found that nanowires with a relatively bigger catalyst droplet on the tip grow faster. Intriguingly, it is also found that the growth of nanowires can involve catalyst splitting: while the majority of catalyst remains at the nanowire tip and continues facilitating the growth, a portion of it is removed from the tip due to the splitting. It remains attached to the nanowire at the position where the splitting occurred and subsequently induces the growth of a nanowire branch. As far as it is known, this is the first time that catalyst splitting is revealed experimentally in situ. It is proposed that the instability of catalyst droplet caused by the volume increase is the main reason for the splitting. It is believed that in situ growth inside the ESEM can largely enrich our understanding on the metal‐catalyzed VLS growth kinetics, which may open up more opportunities for morphology‐controlled synthesis of 1D semiconductor nanowires in future study.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

In Situ Scanning Electron Microscopy Observation of Growth Kinetics and Catalyst Splitting in Vapor–Liquid–Solid Growth of Nanowires

Huang

Weinberg

Meng

et al. 2015

Adv Funct Materials

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show abstract

“…The origin of this might be related to the two-species model for melting-curve maxima that had been found in molten metals such as Ce, Te and intermetallic compounds BbTe 3 et al 31,32 It is now clear that the geometric oscillation and the two linear relationships can be traced back to the liquid droplet's nanometre size effect on the growth kinetics. In addition to the periodic diameter variation observed in Supplementary Figs 4-6, it is worth noting that very recently observed catalyst droplet oscillations in straight Ge nanowire growth by using real-time in situ scanning electron microscopy might also be described by the above discussion 33 .…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 52%

A surface curvature oscillation model for vapour–liquid–solid growth of periodic one-dimensional nanostructures

Wang

Cao

et al. 2015

Nat Commun

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While the vapour-liquid-solid process has been widely used for growing one-dimensional nanostructures, quantitative understanding of the process is still far from adequate. For example, the origins for the growth of periodic one-dimensional nanostructures are not fully understood. Here we observe that morphologies in a wide range of periodic one-dimensional nanostructures can be described by two quantitative relationships: first, inverse of the periodic spacing along the length direction follows an arithmetic sequence; second, the periodic spacing in the growth direction varies linearly with the diameter of the nanostructure. We further find that these geometric relationships can be explained by considering the surface curvature oscillation of the liquid sphere at the tip of the growing nanostructure. The work reveals the requirements of vapour-liquid-solid growth. It can be applied for quantitative understanding of vapour-liquid-solid growth and to design experiments for controlled growth of nanostructures with custom-designed morphologies.

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“…To that end, we believe that the direct translation of capillarity laws from the planar to the non-planar nanoscale case has not been discussed with enough depth. Important works have been published regarding the possible role of edges [27][28][29] and the effect of the droplet volume on the contact angle [25,30]. However, given the prominent role of the contact angle in NW growth, this point deserves clarification.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Questioning liquid droplet stability on nanowire tips: from theory to experiment

et al. 2019

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Liquid droplets sitting on nanowire (NW) tips constitute the starting point of the vapor-liquidsolid method of NW growth. Shape and volume of the droplet have been linked to a variety of growth phenomena ranging from the modification of growth direction, NW orientation, crystal phase, and even polarity. In this work we focus on numerical and theoretical analysis of the stability of liquid droplets on NW tips, explaining the peculiarity of this condition with respect to the wetting of planar surfaces. We highlight the role of droplet pinning at the tip in engineering the contact angle. Experimental results on the characteristics of In droplets of variable volume sitting on the tips or side facets of InAs NWs are also provided. This work contributes to the fundamental understanding of the nature of droplets contact angle at the tip of NWs and to the improvement of the engineering of such nanostructures.

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Real-Time Observation of Collector Droplet Oscillations during Growth of Straight Nanowires

Cited by 21 publications

References 29 publications

In Situ Scanning Electron Microscopy Observation of Growth Kinetics and Catalyst Splitting in Vapor–Liquid–Solid Growth of Nanowires

In Situ Scanning Electron Microscopy Observation of Growth Kinetics and Catalyst Splitting in Vapor–Liquid–Solid Growth of Nanowires

A surface curvature oscillation model for vapour–liquid–solid growth of periodic one-dimensional nanostructures

Questioning liquid droplet stability on nanowire tips: from theory to experiment

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