A modified sol-gel technique for pore size control in porous aluminum oxide nanowire templates.

A modified sol-gel technique was developed to continuously vary the pore diameters in porous alumina templates for the purpose of growing nanowires. To coat the pore walls, the porous alumina film is initially soaked in a methanol/water solution to fill the pores with the desired concentration of water. The porous alumina film is then exposed to a solution of 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES) in toluene, creating a surface layer of APTES.

Design, fabrication and characterization of indefinite metamaterials of nanowires.

Indefinite optical properties, which are typically characterized by hyperbolic dispersion relations, have not been observed in naturally occurring materials, but can be realized through a metamaterial approach. We present here the design, fabrication and characterization of nanowire metamaterials with indefinite permittivity, in which all-angle negative refraction of light is observed. The bottom-up fabrication technique, which applies electrochemical plating of nanowires in porous alumina template, is developed and demonstrated in achieving uniform hyperbolic optical properties at a large scale.

Optical negative refraction in bulk metamaterials of nanowires.

Negative refraction in metamaterials has generated great excitement in the scientific community. Although negative refraction has been realized in microwave and infrared by using metamaterials and by using two-dimensional waveguide structures, creation of a bulk metamaterial showing negative refraction at visible frequency has not been successful, mainly because of the significant resonance losses and fabrication difficulties. We report bulk metamaterials made of nanowires that show such negative refraction for all incident angles in the visible region.

Electrodeposited bismuth telluride nanowire arrays with uniform growth fronts.

Bismuth telluride (Bi2Te3) nanowires were deposited into porous alumina templates with 35 nm diameter pores by a pulsed-potential electrodeposition method. For growth at temperatures between 1 and 4 degrees C, the nanowires filled 93% of the pores of the template, and the growth fronts were uniform with nanowire lengths of approximately 62-68 microm. There are over ten billion nanowires per square centimeter with aspect ratios approaching 2000:1.

The electrodeposition of high-density, ordered arrays of Bi1-xSbx nanowires.

Here we report the synthesis of dense arrays of Bi1-xSbx nanowires with >5 x 1010 nanowires/cm2. The individual wires are crystalline, relatively homogeneous, and highly textured in a 110 direction, with diameters of 40 nm and a composition of x = 12-15 atom % Sb. By tuning the solution concentrations and controlling the growth rate by controlling the potential, the composition, crystallinity, and morphology of the nanowires can be varied.

Study of the structural, electronic, and magnetic properties of the barium-rich iron(IV) oxides, Ba(2)FeO(4) and Ba(3)FeO(5).

Crystals of Ba(2)FeO(4) and Ba(3)FeO(5), grown from a "self-sealing" KOH-Ba(OH)(2) flux, have been characterized by single-crystal X-ray diffraction, Mössbauer spectroscopy, and magnetic measurements. Ba(2)FeO(4) forms nonmerohedral twinned crystals with the monoclinic space group P2(1)/n, a = 6.034(2) A, b = 7.

Copper K-Edge X-ray Absorption Studies of La(2)(-)(x)()K(x)()CuO(4) Superconductors, Ba(4)NaCuO(4)(CO(3))(2), and NdCu(2)O(4).

X-ray near-edge absorption spectroscopy (XANES) measurements are reported at the Cu K-edge for La(2)(-)(x)()K(x)()CuO(4) superconductors with x = 0.1 and 0.2.