Browsing by Author "Cervantes-Sodi, Felipe"
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Item Open Access Viscous state effect on the activity of Fe nanocatalysts.(ACS Nano, 2010-11-23) Cervantes-Sodi, Felipe; McNicholas, Thomas P; Simmons, Jay G; Liu, Jie; Csányi, Gabor; Ferrari, Andrea C; Curtarolo, StefanoMany applications of nanotubes and nanowires require controlled bottom-up engineering of these nanostructures. In catalytic chemical vapor deposition, the thermo-kinetic state of the nanocatalysts near the melting point is one of the factors ruling the morphology of the grown structures. We present theoretical and experimental evidence of a viscous state for nanoparticles near their melting point. The state exists over a temperature range scaling inversely with the catalyst size, resulting in enhanced self-diffusion and fluidity across the solid-liquid transformation. The overall effect of this phenomenon on the growth of nanotubes is that, for a given temperature, smaller nanoparticles have a larger reaction rate than larger catalysts.