Epitaxy-enabled vapor-liquid-solid growth of tin-doped indium oxide nanowires with controlled orientations

Youde Shen, Stuart G. Turner, Ping Yang, Gustaaf Van Tendeloo, Oleg I. Lebedev, Tao Wu

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

41 Scopus citations

Abstract

Controlling the morphology of nanowires in bottom-up synthesis and assembling them on planar substrates is of tremendous importance for device applications in electronics, photonics, sensing and energy conversion. To date, however, there remain challenges in reliably achieving these goals of orientation-controlled nanowire synthesis and assembly. Here we report that growth of planar, vertical and randomly oriented tin-doped indium oxide (ITO) nanowires can be realized on yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) substrates via the epitaxy-assisted vapor-liquid-solid (VLS) mechanism, by simply regulating the growth conditions, in particular the growth temperature. This robust control on nanowire orientation is facilitated by the small lattice mismatch of 1.6% between ITO and YSZ. Further control of the orientation, symmetry and shape of the nanowires can be achieved by using YSZ substrates with (110) and (111), in addition to (100) surfaces. Based on these insights, we succeed in growing regular arrays of planar ITO nanowires from patterned catalyst nanoparticles. Overall, our discovery of unprecedented orientation control in ITO nanowires advances the general VLS synthesis, providing a robust epitaxy-based approach toward rational synthesis of nanowires. © 2014 American Chemical Society.
Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)4342-4351
Number of pages10
JournalNano Letters
Volume14
Issue number8
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 7 2014

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Bioengineering
  • General Materials Science
  • General Chemistry
  • Mechanical Engineering
  • Condensed Matter Physics

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