Electronic structure of silver nanowires on Cu(1 1 0)

Angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy acquired at the CAMD 3 m NIM beamline/Scienta 200 endstation has been used to probe the reduced-dimensional electronic structure of self-assembled silver nanowires on Cu(1 1 0). Prior STM results show that the Ag(1 1 0) nanowires grown on Cu(1 1 0) orientate with the long axis parallel to the [ 1 1 ¯ 0 ] substrate direction. In accordance, angle-resolved photoemission (ARPES) results reveal that the valence bands within the Ag nanowire are strongly anisotropic with clear-band dispersion in the along-wire direction, but no dispersion in the across-wire direction. This strongly suggests that the valence electrons of Ag behave one dimensionally in the lateral plane (along the wire) and have little interaction with the lattice perpendicular to the nanowire.