Electrochemical fabrication of ultralow noise metallic nanowires with hcp crystalline lattice

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that electrochemically fabricated silver nanowires with an hcp crystalline structure exhibit significantly reduced low-frequency electrical noise compared to traditional fcc structured nanowires, due to diminished dislocation motion.

Contribution

The paper introduces a low-potential electrochemical method to produce single-crystalline hcp silver nanowires with ultralow electrical noise, advancing nanowire fabrication techniques.

Findings

Noise reduced by two to six orders of magnitude in hcp nanowires

Dislocation motion likely causes electrical noise in metallic nanowires

Hcp structure suppresses dislocation activity, lowering noise

Abstract

We experimentally demonstrate that low-frequency electrical noise in silver nanowires is heavily suppressed when the crystal structure of the nanowires is hexagonal closed pack (hcp) rather than face centered cubic (fcc). Using a low-potential electrochemical method we have grown single crystalline silver nanowires with hcp crystal structure, in which the noise at room temperature is two to six orders of magnitude lower than that in the conventional fcc nanowires of the same diameter. We suggest that motion of dislocations is probably the primary source of electrical noise in metallic nanowires, which is strongly diminished in hcp crystals.