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Published on: December 21, 2015
Kinetic Growth of Ultralong Metastable Zincblende MnSe Nanowires Catalyzed by a Fast Ionic Conductor via a
1Hefei National Laboratory of Physical Sciences at the Microscale (HFNL), ‡Department of Chemistry, §Laboratory of Nanomaterials for Energy Conversion (LNEC), ∥Synergetic Innovation Center of Quantum Information & Quantum Physics, University of Science and Technology of China , Hefei 230026, Anhui, P. R. China.
Abstract:
The metastable semiconductor phase allows for the exploration of unusual properties and functionalities of abnormal structures, although it is often difficult to prevent thermodynamic transformations to lower energy structures from higher, unfavored energy states. Here, we show for the first time the preparation of high-quality ultralong metastable zincblende (ZB)-MnSe nanowires with a four-coordinate structure via solution-solid-solid (SSS) growth in a mild solution-phase synthetic environment (120-220 °C) in the presence of a trace amount of Ag(I). The metastable ZB-MnSe nanowires are stabilized kinetically due to the catalysis of early formed body-centered cubic (bcc) fast-ionic (superionic) Ag2Se nanocrystals from the Ag(I) source, and the ZB-MnSe nanowires grow epitaxially along the ⟨110⟩ axis rather than the ⟨111⟩ axis, as commonly observed for typical four-coordinate Grimm-Sommerfeld bonding solids. Our method provides a new route for the growth of metastable nanostructures.

