Template-based fabrication of metal nanostructures

Owing to the great demands in the field of nanoscience and engineering, it is important at this juncture to devise novel, cost-effective, and efficient ways of fabricating nanostructures. Palladium and nickel nanowires have been fabricated by electrodepositing Pd and Ni from aqueous plating solutions on to the step edges of highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG). The morphology of the nanowires has been studied with an atomic force microscope (AFM) and a scanning electron microscope (SEM). AFM studies revealed that the diameter of the nanowires was approximately 250 nm in the case of Pd and 14 nm in the case of Ni. SEM studies prove that the nanowires fabricated by this technique formed continuous and parallel arrays. The deposition parameters have been optimized for the growth of continuous nanowires for both metals. In the case of Pd the particles have been successfully transferred to polymer surfaces and the electrical resistance of the array of the nanowires has been found to be of the order of a few kΩ.