Self-Assembled Boron Nanowire Y-Junctions

Abstract

In this work, we demonstrate that boron nanowire Y-junctions can be synthesized in a self-assembled manner by fusing two individual boron nanowires grown inclined toward each other. We show that the presence of a second liquid, in addition to the liquid Au catalyst, is critical to the inclination of the boron nanowire. The structure of the BNYJ arrays that we report here may allow construction of three- or multiple-terminal nanowire devices directly on Si-based readout circuits through controlled nanowire growth.