Growth of gold nanowires by dielectrophoresis for field-emission display applications

In the reported work, gold nanowires have been grown between two coplanar electrodes on an insulating substrate, with the resulting gold nanowires lying along the insulating substrate. It was found that there was a complicated relationship between the dielectrophoresis (DEP) parameters (AC supply voltage and frequency, electrolyte and colloid concentration) and the shape and growth rate of the resulting wires. These were optimised to give slower growth rates such that shorter, sturdier wires could be formed which did not collapse on washing and drying of the sample. Despite the high aspect ratio of the wires, field-emission characteristics were not encouraging, the wires displaying an emission current of 1 μA/cm² at macroscopic electric fields ranging between 20 to 100 V/μm, depending upon the sample tested.