The alloying-induced electrical conductivity of metal–chalcogenolate nanowires

Abstract

Alloying is one of the most effective strategies to change the properties of inorganic–organic hybrid materials, but there are few reports of the alloying of one-dimensional nanowires with precise atomic structure due to the difficulties in obtaining the single crystals of nanowires themselves. Herein, we describe the synthesis and characterization of an alloyed one-dimensional Ag–Cu nanowire [Ag_2.5Cu_1.5(S-Adm)₄]_n. Compared with the unalloyed [Ag₄(S-Adm)₄]_n, our novel alloyed nanowire exhibits good conductivity, and its resistivity (as a powder) was determined to be 107 Ω m by impedance analysis–consistent with that of a semiconductor. Accordingly, based on these properties combined with its excellent thermal stability and high-yielding, gram-scale synthesis, [Ag_2.5Cu_1.5(S-Adm)₄]_n is proposed for electronic-device applications.