Ultrasonication assisted production of silver nanowires with low aspect ratio and their optical properties

•An ultrasonic processor was used to produce silver NWs with low aspect ratio.•UV absorption characteristic of fragmentized silver NWs was not changed.•One dimensional structure of a nanowire was not influenced by the fragmentation process.

We investigated a facial method to produce silver nanowires with low aspect ratio by fragmentizing as produced long silver nanowires. The length of silver nanowires can be shortened in a controllable manner by increasing ultrasonication time or ultrasonication power. However, excessively large ultrasonication power caused a problem of agglomeration of nanowires. From UV absorption spectra, it was found that the UV absorption characteristic of silver nanowires is not affected by ultrasonication assisted fragmentation indicating that one dimensional structure of silver nanowires is maintained during the fragmentation process.