Vapor-liquid-solid mechanisms: Challenges for nanosized quantum cluster/dot/wire materials

International audienceThe growth mechanism model of a nanoscaled material is a critical step that has to be refined for a better understanding of a nanostructure's dot/wire fabrication. To do so, the growth mechanism will be discussed in this paper and the influence of the size of the metallic nanocluster starting point, referred to later as “size effect,” will be studied. Among many of the so-called size effects, a tremendous decrease of the melting point of the metallic nanocluster changes the physical properties as well as the physical/mechanical interactions inside the growing structure composed of a metallic dot on top of a column. The thermodynamic size effect is related to the bending or curvature of chains of atoms, giving rise to the weakening of bonds between them; this size or curvature effect is described and approached to crystal nanodot/wire growth. We will describe this effect as that of a “cooking machine” when the number of atoms decreases from 1023 at./cm3 for a bulk material to a few tens of them in a 1–2 nm diameter sphere. The decrease of the number of atoms in a metallic cluster from such an enormous quantity is accompanied by a lowering of the melting temperature that extends from 200 up to 1000 K, depending on the metallic material and its size under study. In this respect, the vapor-liquid-solid VLS model, which is the most utilized growth mechanism for quantum nanowires and nanodots, is critically exposed to size or curvature effects CEs. More precisely, interactions in the vicinity of the growth regions should be reexamined. Some results illustrating the growth of micrometer-/nanometer-sized materials are presented in order to corroborate the CE/VLS models utilized by many research groups in today's nanosciences world. Examples of metallic clusters and semiconducting wires will be presented. The results and comments presented in this paper can be seen as a challenge to be overcome. From them, we expect that in a near future an improved model can be exposed to the scientific communit