Evolutional Transformations of Copper Nanoparticles to Copper Oxide Nanowires

We study and analyze here a novel and simple approach to produce copper oxide nanowires in a methanol as an alternative to chemical synthesis routs and VLS-growth method. First, copper oxide nanowires are grown from copper nanoparticles in methanol at $60^{\circ}C$. Nanoparticles are synthesized via inert gas condensation, one of the dry processes. Synthesized nanowires were confirmed via XRD, FESEM and TEM. As a result, all particles have grown to Cu2O nanowires (20~30 nm in diameter, 5~10 um in length; aspect ratio >160~500). Next, these synthesized oxide nanowires are reduced copper nanowires in the furnace under hydrogen flow at $200{\sim}450^{\circ}C$. The evolution of oxide nanowires and their transformation to copper nanowires is studied as a function of time.