Formation and optical properties of compression-induced nanoscale buckles on silver nanowires.

An intriguing formation of nanoscale buckles is discovered when an array of aligned silver nanowires was deposited onto prestrained polydimethylsiloxane substrates. The spacing distance between the resulting silver nanoparticles corresponds to the buckling wavelength of the silver nanowires. The buckled nanowires exhibit unique optical properties, such as interruption of scattered polarized photons and emission of photons from subwavelength structure, as well as surface-enhanced Raman scattering at the vicinity of the formed nanobuckles. In this way, they have great potentials for nano-opto devices, catalysts for chemical reactions, and functional materials for chemical detections.