Crystallization of ultrathin metal nanowires with tetrahedrally close packed structure: the role of surface chemistry and precursors

The elucidation of the atomic structure of ultrathin nanowires (UNWs) is an important challenge, both to control their physical properties and to describe their growth mechanism in relation with their very small diameter and their surface chemistry. The aim of this project is to use total scattering techniques to analyse the structure of Au UNWs (diameter < 2 nm) that are synthesized in different conditions (solvent and capping agents, reducing agent, presence of metal adatoms …). In situ HE-XRD characterizations on Au UNWs, isolated or aligned in bundles thanks to ac electric field, will be carried out to understand under which conditions they crystallize in a tetrahedrally close packed structure or in the classical fcc structure and why they can adopt a linear or an helical conformation.