Decoration of hierarchical Au/Pd nanostructures on 3C–SiC nanorods

• Catalytic growth of 3C–SiC nanorods done in a cold-wall APCVD reactor.
• Hierarchical nanostructures of Au/Pd metal alloy deposited by DC sputtering.
• The hierarchical nanostructures were physically adsorbed on the surface of nanorods.
• Adsorbed Au/Pd nanostructures have average sizes in the range of 2–10 nm.

Fabrication of hierarchical nanostructures offers many advantages and can be exploited for creating superhydrophobic surfaces as well as heterojunctions and branched nanostructures, etc. In this work, catalytic growth of cubic-silicon carbide (3C–SiC) nanorods was carried out in an inductively heated horizontal cold-wall atmospheric pressure chemical vapor deposition (APCVD) reactor operated at the growth temperature i.e., 1200 °C for 1 h. Following this, hierarchical nanostructures of Au/Pd metal alloy were deposited on the surface of micron size long nanorods by DC sputtering. These hierarchical nanostructures were physically adsorbed on the surface of nanorods covering the exposed area. The average diameter of the nanorods as well as the average size of the adsorbed Au/Pd nanostructures was found to be in the range of 10–80 nm and 2–10 nm, respectively.

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