Controlled synthesis of abundantly branched, hierarchical nanotrees by electron irradiation of polymers

A synthesis route to yield 3D hierarchical, tree-like nanostructures with controlled morphologies, consisting of trunks and abundant branches by electron irradiation of polymers, was analyzed. The nanotrees consisted of trunks and abundant branches with multiple subbranches of as-formed nanotrees could have more than one thousand branches. After the irradiation, it was observed that many free-standing nanotrees had formed on the mesh edges of copper grids, thus facilitating chemical and structural characterization of the nanotrees indicate that nanostructures have amorphous phases. The results show that the electron-irradiation approach is parallel process and the nanotree structures can be synthesized simultaneously on a large area of the substrate.