Fabrication of nanoporous gold nanowires

We report a method for the fabrication of nanoporous nanowires with high surface area and well-defined pore morphology. The nanoporous nanowires are formed in a two-step process involving electrochemical deposition of a single-phase, two-component A(x)B(1-x) alloy into a nanoporous template, and subsequent chemical etching of one component from the alloy after removal from the template. Here, we demonstrate the fabrication of nanoporous gold nanowires and also show that nonporous segments can be incorporated into multisegment nanowires. (C) 2002 American Institute of Physics.