Efficient Superionic Conductor Catalyst for Solid in Solution–Solid–Solid Growth of Heteronanowires

How efficient could a superionic conductor catalyst be? Beyond the traditionally used molecular precursors when the solution dispersed solid nanomaterials of variable size, shape and phase are introduced under certain reaction condition; the catalyst is found to digest all these structures in minutes irrespective of their phase and morphology, resulting unique heteronanowires. This has been inspected here by employing different ZnSe nanostructures as precursor for Ag2Se nanocrystal catalyst in its superionic conductor phase to obtain the Ag2Se-ZnSe heteronanowires. This dissolution and formation process of these nanostructures is correlated with the change in the reaction temperature profile, the phase of the catalyst, the shape/phase and surface ligands of the source nanostructures, and the possible mechanism of the unique heteronanowires growth has been investigated.