Study on the synthesis of silver nanowires with adjustable diameters through the polyol process

Silver nanowires with adjustable diameters ranging from 20 to 500 nm have been synthesized by introducing certain control agents into the conventional polyol process. These control agents can be classified into three types: inorganic anions, metal cations, and molecules. The as-synthesized nanowires also exhibit size dependent UV-vis absorption spectra, which are meaningful to the fabrication of nanodevices. It is presumed that the control agents could influence the size of the initial nucleus and therefore the diameters of the final nanowires through forming silver salt colloids or varying the rate of silver reduction. This synthetical strategy may also provide a versatile route to prepare nanomaterials with well-defined diameters.