Flexible welding of SiOx nanowire to macroporous carbon film and underlying new insights

With the continuous decreasing in sizes of functional materials and devices, people are being asked to perform a flexible, accurate, in-situ and non-thermal welding of nanowires at the nanoscale. In this work, a well deliberated procedure including three typical stages: sharpening, hooking and welding, was carried out in sequence by in-situ TEM to realize the high demand welding of SiOx nanowire to macroporous carbon film. It was found that the brittle SiOx nanowire was non-thermally softened under energetic e-beam irradiation, and the flexibility and accuracy of welding could be achieved by adjusting the beam spot size, irradiation location and irradiation time. It was demonstrated that the nanocurvature effect of SiOx nanowire and the ultra-fast energy deposition effect induced by energetic e-beam irradiation dominated the diffusion, evaporation and plastic flow of atoms and the resulting nanowire re-shaping and nanowelding processes. In contrast, the traditional knock-on mechanism and e-beam heating effect are inadequate to explain these phenomena. Therefore, such a study is crucial not only to the flexible technical controlling but also to the profound fundamental understanding of energetic e-beam-induced nanowire re-shaping and nanowelding.

Automated summary

By utilizing a well deliberated procedure including three typical stages carried out in-situ TEM, the high demand welding of SiOx nanowire to macroporous carbon film was successfully achieved, demonstrating that flexibility and accuracy of welding could be accomplished by adjusting the beam spot size, irradiation location and irradiation time.