A template-free fabrication method for silicon nanostructures, such as silicon micropillar (MP)/nanowire (NW) composite structure is presented. Utilizing an improved metal-assisted electroless etching (MAEE) of silicon in KMnO4/AgNO3/HF solution and silicon composite nanostructure of the long MPs erected in the short NWs arrays were generated on the silicon substrate. The morphology evolution o...

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have high aspect ratio and have great potential to be applied as the field emission cathode because of its large field enhancement factor. In this work, a high performance carbon nanotube field emission cathode (CNTFC) was fabricated by using a composite plating method. The CNTs were purified by acid solutions and then dispersed in electrobath with nickel ions at tempera...

In this work, we developed a new ion exchange plating (IEP) method that is different to traditional electrochemical plating or electroless plating techniques. A variety of silver patterns were prepared by using the IEP technique as demonstrated in this work. The key factors to the definition and the conductive performance of silver patterns were systematically studied. Mechanisms of the formati...

Electroless deposition of a quasi-monolayer (q-ML) of Pt and/or Pd on different Au substrates is achieved by using CO as both reducing and quenching agents, imparting Au@Pt/C or Au@Pd/C with superior electrocatalytic activity for ethanol oxidation in alkaline media.

Article history: Received 4 June 2012 Accepted in revised form 30 March 2013 Available online 6 April 2013