Dislocation-Driven Nanowire Growth and Eshelby Twist

doi:10.1126/science.1157131

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Originally published in Science Express on 1 May 2008
Science 23 May 2008:
Vol. 320. no. 5879, pp. 1060 - 1063
DOI: 10.1126/science.1157131

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Reports

Dislocation-Driven Nanowire Growth and Eshelby Twist

Matthew J. Bierman,¹^* Y. K. Albert Lau,¹^* Alexander V. Kvit,² Andrew L. Schmitt,¹ Song Jin¹

Hierarchical nanostructures of lead sulfide nanowires resemblingpine trees were synthesized by chemical vapor deposition. Structuralcharacterization revealed a screwlike dislocation in the nanowiretrunks with helically rotating epitaxial branch nanowires. Itis suggested that the screw component of an axial dislocationprovides the self-perpetuating steps to enable one-dimensionalcrystal growth, in contrast to mechanisms that require metalcatalysts. The rotating trunks and branches are the consequenceof the Eshelby twist of screw dislocations with a dislocationBurgers vector along the $<$ 110 $>$ directions having an estimatedmagnitude of 6 ± 2 angstroms for the screw component.The results confirm the Eshelby theory of dislocations, andthe proposed nanowire growth mechanism could be general to manymaterials.

¹ Department of Chemistry, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 1101 University Avenue, Madison, WI 53706, USA.
² Materials Science Center, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 1509 University Avenue, Madison, WI 53706, USA.

^* These authors contributed equally to this work.

To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: jin{at}chem.wisc.edu