Monitoring Seed Formation Dynamics of Bulk-nucleated Vapor-Solid-Solid Germanium Nanowires via Resistance Measurements

Nanowire growth from metal surfaces presents several scientifically interesting and technologically important re-search challenges. Scientifically, many knowledge gaps remain about the fundamental mechanism by which nan-owires nucleate from bulk surfaces. Technologically, this approach presents a promising pathway towards large-scale continuous nanowire fabrication. We present a novel method to probe nanowire growth by in-situ monitoring the resistance of the substrate from which the nanowires nucleate. We show that probing the resistance of the inductively heated thin film provides real-time diagnostic information about the reaction, including temperature, surface compo-sition, and coarsening rate. We relate distinct features in the transient resistance to growth processes using ex-situ characterization via X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, and optical microscopy. The in-situ resistance characterization method introduced in this paper provides new phys...