Short-circuit diffusion was observed in a single CuO nanowire which had been synthesized by using a thermal oxidation method. The confocal Raman spectra of a single CuO nanowire permitted direct observations to be made of the nature of an individual CuO nanowire. The parameter order obtained from the inverse Raman Bg2 peak line-width resulted in the length dependence of the line-width and a short-circuit diffusion length of 3.3µm. The observed structural information was consistent with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopic mapping. The results confirmed that the growth of CuO nanowires occurred via a short-circuit diffusion mechanism.

Direct Observation of Short-Circuit Diffusion during the Formation of a Single Cupric Oxide Nanowire. C.L.Cheng, Y.R.Ma, M.H.Chou, C.Y.Huang, V.Yeh, S.Y.Wu: Nanotechnology, 2007, 18[24] 245604 (5pp)