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.