Scalable growth of high quality bismuth nanowires Bismuth nanowires have intriguing electronic and energy-harvesting application possibilities. However fabricating these materials with high quality and in large quantities is challenging.        A group at the CFN Brookhaven National Laboratory has demonstrated a new technique to produce single- crystal nanowires atop arbitrary substrates including glass silicon and metal when an intermediate layer of vanadium is present.  �The simplicity of the technique and the universality of the mechanism open a new avenue for the growth of nanowire arrays of a variety of materials.This is the first report on the high yield (>70%) synthesis of single crystalline bismuth nanowires a material with potentially exploitable and intriguing thermoelectric properties.  �This technique produces bismuth nanowires in quantities limited only by the size of the substrate on which they are deposited.  �The dimensions of the bismuth nanowires can be tuned over a very wide range simply by varying the substrate's temperature.  �Further in contrast with other fabrication methods with this new technique there is no need for a catalyst to activate the production of the nanowires thus avoiding inevitable contamination and enabling high-quality material.CFN Capabilities: CFN's Materials Synthesis and Characterization Electron Microscopy and Advanced UV and X-ray Probes Facilities were used for synthesis of nanowires and their structural characterization.    Explore further:        Uniform nanowire arrays for science and manufacturing     More information: Surface-energy induced formation of single crystalline bismuth nanowires over vanadium thin film at room temperature. Nano Letters 14 5630 �5635 (2014) DOI: 10.1021/nl502208u