Field Emission and Superhydrophobic Properties of Electrochemically Grown Gold Nanourchins

Abstract

"We demonstrate a convenient fabrication of Au nanourchins (NUs) on Si substrates via a surfactant-assisted galvanic reduction process. This synthetic method not only grows Au NUs on Si in a one-step process but also effectively controls the lengths of the branches on the NUs. The widths are about 100-120 nm and the lengths can be extended from 200 nm to 5 mu m by lengthening the growth time. With the advantage of a hierarchical surface structure, Au NUs exhibited excellent electron field emission (FE) performance (turn-on voltage, 6.3 V/mu m; beta, 1150). In addition, the wetting behavior examination shows that the water contact angle can be as high as 158 degrees on Au NUs after the material is treated by 1-hexadecanethiol."