Synthesis of naturally cross-linked polycrystalline ZrO2 hollow nanowires using butterfly as templates

Butterfly wing skeleton is a widely used hard-template in recent years for fabricating photonic crystal structures. However, the smallest construction units for the most species of butterflies are commonly larger than ∼50 nm, which greatly hinders their applications in designing much smaller functional parts down to real “nano scale”. This work indicates, however, that hollow ZrO2 nanowires with ∼2.4 μm in length, ∼35 nm in diameter and ∼12 nm in wall thickness can be synthesized via the selection of suitable butterfly bio-templates followed by heat processing. Especially, the successful fabrication of these naturally cross-linked ZrO2 nanotubes suggests a new optional approach in fabricating assembled nano systems.

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► Naturally cross-linked ZrO2 nanotubes with ∼2.4 μm in length, ∼35 nm in diameter and ∼12 nm in wall thickness was synthesized via the selection of suitable butterfly bio-templates followed by heat processing.
► The contractions, which are main defects of the former hard-template method based on butterflies, are well controlled with the help of the surface tension effect.
► The achieved hollow ZrO2 nanowires suggest a new optional approach that uses bio-templates in fabricating and designing nano systems.