Scientists from Argonne National Laboratory CNM's Nanofabrication and Electronic and Magnetic Materials and Devices groups, working with users from the University of Wisconsin-Stevenson Point, discovered a fast, simple, scalable technique for solution-based, electrochemical synthesis of patterned metallic and semiconducting nanowires from a reusable, non-sacrificial, ultrananocrystalline diamond (UNCD) template.

The process involves fabrication of wafer-level electrochemical cells consisting of alternating insulating and conducting UNCD thin films.

Unique electrochemical properties of electrically conducting nitrogen incorporated UNCD not only provide a robust electrode platform for electro-deposition of micro/nanowires of various materials, but also facilitate easy peeling-off of deposited micro/nanowires for repeat use.

This bench-top technique is easy and quickly produces patterned nanowires on a large scale with diameters that are not predefined by the template, and do not require vacuum or clean-room processing. This offers a path for studying nanoscale phenomena and allows for process-scale development of a new generation of nanowire-based devices.