Spontaneous shape transition of Mn x Ge 1− x islands to long nanowires - Aix-Marseille Université Access content directly
Journal Articles Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology Year : 2021

Spontaneous shape transition of Mn x Ge 1− x islands to long nanowires

S Javad Rezvani
  • Function : Author
Gabriele Giuli
  • Function : Author
Yiming Wubulikasimu
  • Function : Author
Augusto Marcelli
Luca Boarino
  • Function : Author
Nicola Pinto
  • Function : Author

Abstract

We report experimental evidence for a spontaneous shape transition, from regular islands to elongated nanowires, upon high-temperature annealing of a thin Mn wetting layer evaporated on Ge(111). We demonstrate that 4.5 monolayers is the critical thickness of the Mn layer, governing the shape transition to wires. A small change around this value modulates the geometry of the nanostructures. The Mn–Ge alloy nanowires are single-crystalline structures with homogeneous composition and uniform width along their length. The shape evolution towards nanowires occurs for islands with a mean size of ≃170 nm. The wires, up to ≃1.1 μm long, asymptotically tend to ≃80 nm of width. We found that tuning the annealing process allows one to extend the wire length up to ≃1.5 μm with a minor rise of the lateral size to ≃100 nm. The elongation process of the nanostructures is in agreement with a strain-driven shape transition mechanism proposed in the literature for other heteroepitaxial systems. Our study gives experimental evidence for the spontaneous formation of spatially uniform and compositionally homogeneous Mn-rich GeMn nanowires on Ge(111). The reliable and simple synthesis approach allows one to exploit the room-temperature ferromagnetic properties of the Mn–Ge alloy to design and fabricate novel nanodevices.

Dates and versions

hal-03604811 , version 1 (10-03-2022)

Identifiers

Cite

S Javad Rezvani, Luc Favre, Gabriele Giuli, Yiming Wubulikasimu, Isabelle Berbezier, et al.. Spontaneous shape transition of Mn x Ge 1− x islands to long nanowires. Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology, 2021, 12, pp.366-374. ⟨10.3762/bjnano.12.30⟩. ⟨hal-03604811⟩
11 View
0 Download

Altmetric

Share

Gmail Facebook Twitter LinkedIn More