Growth of silver nanowires on GaAs wafers

Abstract

Silver (Ag) nanowires with chemically clean surfaces have been directly grown on semi-insulating gallium arsenide (GaAs) wafers through a simple solution/solid interfacial reaction (SSIR) between the GaAs wafers themselves and aqueous solutions of silver nitrate (AgNO₃) at room temperature. The success in synthesis of Ag nanowires mainly benefits from the low concentration of surface electrons in the semi-insulating GaAs wafers that can lead to the formation of a low-density of nuclei that facilitate their anisotropic growth into nanowires. The resulting Ag nanowires exhibit rough surfaces and reasonably good electric conductivity. These characteristics are beneficial to sensing applications based on single-nanowire surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) and possible surface-adsorption-induced conductivity variation.