Electroless deposition of tellurium nanowires in eutectic solvents using immobilised silver islands

Abstract

In this work we demonstrate a new approach towards the electroless deposition of tellurium nanowires in deep eutectic solvents. Unlike most electroless deposition where the substrate is sacrificed to drive the reduction, our process uses immobilised silver epoxy islands on gold films to give localised galvanic displacement of the silver, resulting in an even growth of wires across the entire gold electrode surface. We demonstrate the strong dependence of the nanostructure on the experimental conditions, with changes in bath temperature, tellurium concentration and the halide component of the solvent leading to sizeable alterations in the nanowire geometry. This demonstrates electroless deposition as a promising synthetic route towards low-dimensional tellurium nanostructures.