FIB induced growth of antimony nanowires

The impact of high energy Ga ion beams focused to diameters below 100 nm on antimony (Sb) substrates offers a new approach for the formation of pure Sb nanowires. In contrast to several well-known processes for bottom–up fabrication of one-dimensional nanostructures, for this process neither additional temperature treatment nor any additional material component is needed. Initially, the resulting nanostructures are completely amorphous and show very homogeneous diameters in the range of 20 nm. Lengths up to several microns can be achieved. Annealing at temperatures around 150 °C leads to re-crystallization of these nanowires.