Self assembled bimetallic Ag/Cu-Si nanowires on Si(001) synthesized with e-beam evaporation

This paper presents a method of fabricating self assembled bimetallic Ag and Cu-Si nanowires on Si(001) with electron beam (e-beam) evaporation in ultra high vacuum (UHV) environment. We fabricated three types of bimetallic nanowires with two variations of Ag/Cu-Si that were modulated in longitudinal segment wise and a parallel type of bimetallic nanowire. Two types of fabrication were performed: (1) a two segment nanowire with Ag and Cu-Si in both modulated and parallel directions and (2) a three segment nanowire with the following Ag/Cu-Si/Ag and Cu-Si/Ag/Cu-Si configurations. In situ scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images are shown. X-ray energy dispersive energy spectroscopy (XEDS) was performed on a bimetallic nanowire.