Strain-Induced Transformation of Bulk Alloys to Zinc Nanowires

One-dimensional metal nanowires (NWs) with high aspect ratios are highly desirable for a wide range of critical applications due to their unique electrical and mechanical characteristics. Unfortunately, such nanomaterials are challenging and expensive to synthesize, and their production is difficult to scale up. Here, we report a rather straightforward strategy to directly convert binary zinc (Zn) alloys into Zn NWs under ambient temperature and pressure conditions without using any catalyst, template, or costly/toxic chemical. The formation of NWs follows the mechanism based on minimization of strain energy at the boundary of a chemical reaction front. We show that micrometer-sized Zn–Li grains gradually evolve and transform into hybrid Zn and zinc-alkoxide NWs during a dealloying reaction. Such NW mixtures can be eventually converted into pure Zn metal NWs after thermal reduction in a H2–Ar atmosphere. We investigate the effect of Zn–Li alloy composition, dealloying, and annealing temperature on the diameter and length of the formed Zn NWs. The approach reported in this study is expected to open new avenues for multiple cost-effective synthesis routes of metal NWs with tunable composition and morphology for their widespread applications.