Air-stable anisotropic monocrystalline nickel nanowires characterized using electron holography

Glenna L. Drisko (1, 2) , Christophe Gatel (3) , Pier-Francesco Fazzini (4) , Alfonso Ibarra (5) , Stefanos Mourdikoudis (6) , Vincent Bley (7) , Katia Fajerwerg (2) , Pierre Fau (2) , Myrtil L. Kahn (2)

1 ICMCB - Institut de Chimie de la Matière Condensée de Bordeaux
2 LCC - Laboratoire de chimie de coordination
3 CEMES-I3EM - Interférométrie, In situ et Instrumentation pour la Microscopie Electronique
4 LPCNO - Laboratoire de physique et chimie des nano-objets
5 LMA - Laboratorio de microscopias avanzadas
6 Healthcare Biomagnetic and Nanomaterials Laboratories
7 LAPLACE-MDCE - Matériaux Diélectriques dans la Conversion d’Energie

Nickel is capable of discharging electric and magnetic shocks in aerospace materials thanks to its conductivity and magnetism. Nickel nanowires are especially desirable for such an application as electronic percolation can be achieved without significantly increasing the weight of the composite material. In this work, single-crystal nickel nanowires possessing a homogeneous magnetic field are produced via a metal–organic precursor decomposition synthesis in solution. The nickel wires are 20 nm in width and 1–2 μm in length. The high anisotropy is attained through a combination of preferential crystal growth in the ⟨100⟩ direction and surfactant templating using hexadecylamine and stearic acid. The organic template ligands protect the nickel from oxidation, even after months of exposure to ambient conditions. These materials were studied using electron holography to characterize their magnetic properties. These thin nanowires display homogeneous ferromagnetism with a magnetic saturation (517 ± 80 emu cm–3), which is nearly equivalent to that of bulk nickel (557 emu cm–3). Nickel nanowires were incorporated into carbon composite test pieces and were shown to dramatically improve the electric discharge properties of the composite material.

Mots clés: Nickel; Electric discharge; Electron holography; Ligand stabilization; Magnetism; Nanowires

Domaines: Matériaux

Glenna L. Drisko, Christophe Gatel, Pier-Francesco Fazzini, Alfonso Ibarra, Stefanos Mourdikoudis, et al.. Air-stable anisotropic monocrystalline nickel nanowires characterized using electron holography. Nano Letters, 2018, 18 (3), pp.1733-1738. ⟨10.1021/acs.nanolett.7b04791⟩. ⟨hal-01758581⟩