A novel method for preparing vertically grown single-crystalline gold nanowires

A surfactant-free, template-less and seed-less method, namely the thermal-assisted photoreduction (TAP) process, has been developed to synthesize vertically grown Au nanowires (30-80 nm in diameter and about 2 mu m in length) on the surface of thin film titanium dioxide (TiO2), which is locally excited by blackbody radiation. The Au nanowires thus produced are single-crystalline with a preferred [1 (1) over bar 0] growth direction. The electrical behavior investigated using a nanomanipulation device indicates that the Au nanowires possess an excellent electrical resistivity of about 3.49 x 10(-8) Omega m.