Issue 42, 2019

Solution synthesis of helical gold nanowire bundles

Abstract

Helical nanostructures are important nanoscale building blocks. While only a few methods are available for synthesizing helical metal nanostructures, those involving collective twisting behaviour are even fewer. Here, we report a solution synthesis of Au nanowire bundles with hierarchical helical constructions. Ultrathin nanowires with diameters of only about 10 nm formed huge ribbon bundles that have a width of 0.5–1 μm and thickness of a few hundreds of nanometres. These bundles extended to hundreds of micrometres and curled into helices. Mechanism studies revealed that the white floccules formed by Au(I) and a thiol ligand are of critical importance for both the nanowire growth and helical bundle formation. The nanowire growth took place in the floccules following the previously reported active surface growth mode, and the bundle formation was due to the splitting of the active surface. Most importantly, the floccules assisted the strain-induced curling process that yielded helices. As the length of the bundles keeps increasing and they break out from the surrounding floccules, they would have to pass through the pores of the floccules. The imbalanced squeezing at the pore caused the bundles to curl into helices.

Graphical abstract: Solution synthesis of helical gold nanowire bundles

Associated articles

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Communication
Submitted
07 Jun 2019
Accepted
26 Sep 2019
First published
27 Sep 2019

Nanoscale, 2019,11, 19729-19735

Solution synthesis of helical gold nanowire bundles

X. Tao, H. Li, B. Yu, X. Wu, Y. Lu, Y. Wang and H. Chen, Nanoscale, 2019, 11, 19729 DOI: 10.1039/C9NR04838C

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements