Large-scale boron nanowire nanojunctions and their highly-oriented arrays

Highly oriented multiple boron nanowire nanojunctions with unilateral feather-like morphology were first successfully prepared using a radio-frequency magnetron sputtering method. The branched boron nano-feathers always nucleate and grow on the same sidewall of the stems, and align in parallel to form multiple T-and/or Y-type nanojunctions. The diameters of the branches and the stems are in the range of 20-40 and 60-80 nm, respectively. The thinner branches and thicker stems of the boron nanowires self-assembled into large-scale, highly ordered arrays on various substrates. During the formation and self-assembly of the arrays, no template or catalyst was needed. We believe that the approach presented here can be used to fabricate heterostructures with bottom-up assembly of a wide variety of one-dimensional nanostructures via the rational design of targets and the proper control of the experimental conditions.