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Cold welding of ultrathin gold nanowires

Nature Nanotechnology volume 5, pages 218–224 (2010)Cite this article

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Abstract

The welding of metals at the nanoscale is likely to have an important role in the bottom-up fabrication of electrical and mechanical nanodevices. Existing welding techniques use local heating, requiring precise control of the heating mechanism and introducing the possibility of damage. The welding of metals without heating (or cold welding) has been demonstrated, but only at macroscopic length scales and under large applied pressures. Here, we demonstrate that single-crystalline gold nanowires with diameters between 3 and 10 nm can be cold-welded together within seconds by mechanical contact alone, and under relatively low applied pressures. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy and in situ measurements reveal that the welds are nearly perfect, with the same crystal orientation, strength and electrical conductivity as the rest of the nanowire. The high quality of the welds is attributed to the nanoscale sample dimensions, oriented-attachment mechanisms and mechanically assisted fast surface-atom diffusion. Welds are also demonstrated between gold and silver, and silver and silver, indicating that the technique may be generally applicable.

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Figure 1: Two types of ultrathin gold nanowire samples used for cold-welding experiments.
Figure 2: Head-to-head and side-to-side cold-welding geometries.
Figure 3: Head-to-head welding of two gold nanorods.
Figure 4: Side-to-side welding of two gold nanowires.
Figure 5: In situ tensile strength measurements of the nanowelds.
Figure 6: In situ electrical measurements of the nanowelds.

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Acknowledgements

Y.L. and J.L. acknowledge the financial support provided by the Air Force Office of Sponsored Research (AFOSR) YIP award FA9550-09-1-0084 and by National Science Foundation (NSF) grant ECCS-0702766. This work was performed, in part, at the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, a US Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences user facility. Sandia National Laboratories is a multiprogram laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a Lockheed-Martin Company, for the US Department of Energy under contract no. DE-AC04-94AL85000.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, Rice University, Houston, 77005, Texas, USA

    Yang Lu & Jun Lou

  2. Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies (CINT), Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, 87185, New Mexico, USA

    Jian Yu Huang

  3. Department of Chemistry and Division of Engineering, Brown University, Providence, 02912, Rhode Island, USA

    Chao Wang & Shouheng Sun

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  1. Yang Lu
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Contributions

Y.L., J.H. and J.L. conceived and designed the experiments. Y.L. performed the experiments. Y.L., J.H. and J.L. analysed the data. C.W. and S.S. supplied materials. Y.L. and J.L. composed the manuscript. All authors discussed the results and edited the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Jun Lou.

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Lu, Y., Huang, J., Wang, C. et al. Cold welding of ultrathin gold nanowires. Nature Nanotech 5, 218–224 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2010.4

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