A novel facile synthesis and characterization of molybdenum nanowires

We describe a straightforward technique to synthesize pure Mo nanowires (NWs) from Mo6SyIz (8,2 15 nm) Mo NWs are highly porous, while small diameters (<7 nm) are made of solid nanocrystalline grains. We find NW of diameter 4 nm can carry up to 30 μA current without suffering structural degradation. Moreover, NWs can be elastically deformed over several cycles without signs of plastic deformation.