Abstract
Single-metal-atom chains (SMACs), as the smallest one-dimensional structure, have intriguing physical and chemical properties. Although several SMACs have been realized so far, their controllable fabrication remains challenging due to the need to arrange single atoms in an atomically precise manner. Here we develop a chemical vapour co-deposition method to construct a wafer-scale network of platinum SMACs in atom-thin films. The obtained atomic chains possess an average length of up to ~17 nm and a high density of over 10 wt%. Interestingly, as a consequence of the electronic delocalization of platinum atoms along the chain, this atomically coherent one-dimensional channel delivers a metallic behaviour, as revealed by electronic measurements, first-principles calculations and complex network modelling. Our strategy is potentially extendable to other transition metals such as cobalt, enriching the toolbox for manufacturing SMACs and paving the way for the fundamental study of one-dimensional systems and the development of devices comprising monoatomic chains.
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Data availability
All data are available in the main text or Supplementary Information.
Code availability
The code of the complex network-based method employed in this work is available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.4879863.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the support from National Research Foundation Singapore programme NRF-CRP22-2019-0007 and NRF-CRP21-2018-0007. This work is also supported by the Ministry of Education, Singapore, under its AcRF Tier 2 (MOE2019-T2-2-105) and AcRF Tier 1 RG4/17 and RG7/18. This research is also supported by A*STAR under its AME IRG Grant (project no. A2083c0052). The work at NUAA was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2019YFA0705400), National Natural Science Foundation of China (11772153, 22073048), the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (BK20190018), and a Project by the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions. W.Z. acknowledges the support of the Beijing Outstanding Young Scientist Program (BJJWZYJH01201914430039). B.T. and X.W. acknowledge the support from the Ministry of Education, Singapore (MOE2019 T1-001-113). H.Y. and M.N. acknowledge the support from the Hong Kong Research Grant Council, Hong Kong (HKRGC GRF 12300218, 12300519, 17201020, 17300021, and UGC-RMGS 207300829). H.D. acknowledges the support from German Research Foundation (DFG) under the Grant SFB917 Nanoswitches.
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Contributions
Z.L. Y.H. and Z.Z. guided the project. S.G. and Y.H. synthesized the platinum SMACs. S.G. conducted electronic measurements. J.F. and C.Z. (NTU and SEU) conducted the STEM characterizations. Z.Z. proposed the surf-zip model. P.Z. and Z.Z. performed the first-principle calculations and analysed the simulation results. H.Y., M.H., Y.H. and M.N. simulated the electronic transport. Z.L., Y.H., Z.Z. and C.J. conceived and supervised the experiments. All the authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.
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Nature Synthesis thanks Jan van Ruitenbeek and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Alison Stoddart was the primary editor on this article and managed its editorial process and peer review in collaboration with the rest of the editorial team.
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Supplementary Figs. 1–25, Table 1, Discussion, and Notes 1 and 2.
Supplementary Data 1
The coordinates of all optimized structures used in the DFT calculations.
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Statistical Source Data for Fig. 1c.
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Statistical Source Data for Fig. 3b.
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Statistical Source Data for Fig. 3c.
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Statistical Source Data for Fig. 5f.
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Statistical Source Data for Fig. 5h.
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Guo, S., Fu, J., Zhang, P. et al. Direct growth of single-metal-atom chains. Nat Synth 1, 245–253 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44160-022-00038-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s44160-022-00038-z
