A Modified Electroless Deposition Route to Dendritic Cu Metal Nanostructures

Abstract

Metal Cu nanomaterials are highly desirable for being used in many applications and most widely used in electrical conductivity much more than silver and gold because of its low price and stability at high frequencies. In this paper, a modified electroless deposition strategy has been discovered for the first synthesis of novel Cu dendritic nanostructures. We have adopted the diffusion-limited growth and oriented attachment mechanism, which take effect equally during the nucleation and growth process, to account for the formation mechanism of the unique Cu dendritic nanostructures. The obtained Cu dendritic nanostructures can bring wide applications in optics, gas sensors, catalysts, information storage, and other related fields and sheds new insights to understand the formation process of fractal dendritic structures in the natural and synthetic world. Most importantly, the method reported in this work provides a new principle for the designing synthesis of dendritic metal nanomaterials and can be regarded as a general way to fabricate other nanomaterials