In collaboration with the ETH Zurich and the University of São Paulo, a team led by Diego Coradini and Dr. Matheus Tunes together with Dr. Thomas Kremmer, Prof. Uggowitzer and Prof. Pogatscher from the field of non-ferrous metallurgy were able to research an exciting phenomenon. The findings of this research resulted in a paper with the title “Degradation of Cu nanowires in a low-reactive plasma environment” as part of the Nature Partner Journal series.
Here is the link to the article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41529-020-00137-2
The work investigates the metallurgical behaviour of copper nanowires in a plasma environment commonly used for cleaning electronic devices. Nanomaterials are a great hope for the future electronics industry. Initially, it was the intention of the research team to clean the copper nanowires from organic impurities. When they placed the nanowires in a transmission microscope, they were in for a perfect surprise. The nanowires were completely destroyed. After intensive discussions, a mechanism was found which explains the phenomenon and helps to avoid it in the future.
We congratulate the team on this success!
