Synthesis of Germanium Nanowires

We report here a novel and simple method, without using any seeds or catalysts, to synthesize single-crystal germanium nanowires with tunable 10−115 nm diameters and of 10−20 μm length by the decomposition of a precursor [(CH 3 (CH 2 ) 7 CH CH(CH 2 ) 7 CH 2 NH 2 ) 4 Ge] 4+ ·(Cl - ) 4 (TOG) at 360 °C in trioctylamine. The diameter of Ge nanowires can be controlled by varying the concentration of TOG in solution.