Synthesis and Nanostructuring of Patterned Wires of α-GeO2 by Thermal Oxidation

Thermal oxidation of metallic Ge yields patterned nanowires of α-GeO2. A significant proportion (∼50 %) of the nanowires possess a common wire morphology with a uniform structure, while some of them have distinctive patterned structures consisting of either a regular array of Ge dots or penetrating holes along their axial directions (see Figure), the so-called dot-patterned nanowires and hole-patterned nanowires, respectively.