Physics – From Crystal to Nanowire
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• Physics 16, s104
Researchers have demonstrated a strategy to sift a database of crystalline compounds for buildings that may be separated into helpful one-dimensional supplies.
Amid the likelihood area of crystalline compounds are ones that may be readily changed into one-dimensional (1D) supplies with fascinating properties. A group on the College of Florida, Gainesville, has now supplied explorers of that area with a map of types. Joshua Paul and his colleagues have demonstrated a strategy to sift the Supplies Undertaking database—an open-access encyclopedia of greater than 100,000 compounds—for crystals that ought to readily separate into steady 1D nanowires [1]. Among the many crystals pinpointed by the group are compounds that would yield nanowires with functions in spintronics and quantum applied sciences.
The researchers used their beforehand developed algorithm to determine which atoms in a crystal’s unit cell are chemically bonded on the premise of whether or not the atoms’ radii overlap with each other. Subsequent, they seemed for bonded atoms in linear clusters which might be separated from the unit cell alongside two axes. Such clusters are held solely by the van der Waals pressure and might subsequently be exfoliated from the majority. It turned out that 551 crystal buildings had these traits. Paul and colleagues narrowed the pattern additional utilizing density-functional concept to pick out solely these nanowires prone to stay intact after exfoliation moderately than decomposing right into a extra steady, much less helpful state.
From the 103 crystals that made it by these filters, Paul and colleagues selected 5 nanowires with totally different magnetic moments per unit cell and evaluated their stability underneath totally different magnetic configurations. In addition they chosen a further three nanowires for a research of structural distortions that happen after exfoliation. Such distortions can drastically alter the properties of the nanowire. “It could be sorely disappointing if the metallic nanowire one was trying to make turned out to be insulating,” says Paul.
–Marric Stephens
Marric Stephens is a Corresponding Editor for Physics Journal based mostly in Bristol, UK.
References
- J. T. Paul et al., “Stability and magnetic conduct of exfoliable nanowire one-dimensional supplies,” Phys. Rev. Mater. 7, 076002 (2023).
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