Vertical crystallization of C60 nanowires by solvent vapor annealing process.

We report that C60 molecules are spontaneously crystallized into vertical nanowires by the solvent vapor annealing (SVA) process. C60 molecules have been known to be assembled into wire-like crystals by simply dropping and drying C60 solutions in m-xylene on a solid substrate. By the drop-drying process, C60 nanowires have been mostly grown laterally on a solid substrate, as the major force applied to the droplet during the drying process is parallel to the substrate.