- LSF ID
- 48700
- ORCID
- 0000-0002-5878-2012
- Other
- connected with university
- LSF ID
- 1107
- Other
- connected with university
Abstract:
We studied electromigration in polycrystalline gold and single crystalline silver nanowires. The gold wires are prepared using a two step electron beam lithography process. The silver wires grow self organized and epitaxially along step edges on Si (001) substrates and have a typical width of 200 – 500 nm and a length up to 100 µm. Electromigration measurements are carried out in-situ in a scanning electron microscope at room temperature. For the gold wires we observe a mass flow from the cathode to the anode side of the wire, as it is expected. Surprisingly, we find the opposite behavior for the epitaxial grown silver wires with a mass flow against the electron flow. Moreover, changing the polarity during the experiment, voids are closed and created reversibly. ©2006 American Institute of Physics