We report the bulk synthesis of hydrogenated, amorphous SixNy and SixOy nanowires using pools of molten gallium as the solvent medium and microwave plasma consisting of silane in nitrogen and silane in oxygen respectively. High densities of multiple nanowires nucleated and grew from molten gallium pools. The resulting nanowires were tens of nanometers in diameter and tens of microns long. Elect...

Among the large number of promising two-dimensional (2D) atomic layer crystals, true metallic layers are rare. Using combined theoretical and experimental approaches, we report on the stability and successful exfoliation of atomically thin "gallenene" sheets on a silicon substrate, which has two distinct atomic arrangements along crystallographic twin directions of the parent α-gallium. With a ...

The bulk nucleation and basal growth of semiconducting nanowires from molten Ga pools has been demonstrated earlier using oxygen/hydrogen plasma over molten Ga pools. Herein, we extend the above concept for bulk synthesis of oxide and sulfide nanowires of low-melting metal melts such as Sn and In. Specifically, nanowires of b-Ga2O3, b-In2O3, SnO2, a-Ga2S3, and b-In2S3 were synthesized using dir...

We report the first ever demonstration of using silane directly in the gas phase and molten gallium in a microwave plasma for bulk nucleation and growth of single-crystal quality silicon nanowires. Multiple nanowires nucleated and grew from micronto millimetre-sized gallium droplets. The resulting nanowires were tens to hundreds of nanometres in diameter and were tens to hundreds of microns lon...

Silicon nanowires will find applications in nanoscale electronics and optoelectronics both as active and passive components. Here, we demonstrate a low-temperature vapor–liquid–solid synthesis method that uses liquid-metal solvents with low solubility for silicon and other elemental semiconductor materials. This method eliminates the usual requirement of quantum-sized droplets in order to obtai...

Closeness of electrochemical properties uranium and zirconium makes separation these metals in pyroelectrochemical reprocessing spent nuclear fuels a challenging task. Varying electrode material can change metals’ deposition potentials. The study was aimed at assessing the effect cathode on potentials from 3LiCl–2KCl based melts. Solid (tungsten) liquid (gallium, zinc, Ga–Zn, Ga–Sn Ga–In alloy)...