Abstract
Materials with reduced dimensionality have attracted much interest in various fields of fundamental and applied science. True one-dimensional (1D) crystals with single-atom thickness have been realized only for few elemental metals (Au, Ag) or carbon, all of which showed very short lifetimes under ambient conditions. We demonstrate here a successful synthesis of stable 1D ionic crystals in which two chemical elements, one being a cation and the other an anion, align alternately inside carbon nanotubes. Unusual dynamical behaviours for different atoms in the 1D lattice are experimentally corroborated and suggest substantial interactions of the atoms with the nanotube sheath. Our theoretical studies indicate that the 1D ionic crystals have optical properties distinct from those of their bulk counterparts and that the properties can be engineered by introducing atomic defects into the chains.
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Acknowledgements
We thank A. Gloter and C. Ewels for fruitful discussions. Y. Sato and T. Saito are gratefully acknowledged for their assistance for specimen preparations. This work was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSAP) and JST Research Acceleration Program. A.V.K. and H-P.K. acknowledge support from the Academy of Finland through projects 263416 and COMP Centre of Excellence, respectively, and further thank CSC Finland for generous grants of computer time.
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R.S. and K.S. designed the experiments. R.S. prepared materials, performed microscopy and analysed data. H-P.K. and A.V.K. performed DFT calculations. K.H-T. and Z.L. contributed to sample preparation and reference material characterization. R.S., H-P.K., A.V.K. and K.S. co-wrote the paper.
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Senga, R., Komsa, HP., Liu, Z. et al. Atomic structure and dynamic behaviour of truly one-dimensional ionic chains inside carbon nanotubes. Nature Mater 13, 1050–1054 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat4069
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat4069
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