Growth of Single-Crystalline Nanorods in Atmospheric Plasma

Single-crystalline fluorocarbon polymer nanorods are synthesized by oriented atmospheric plasma polymerization. It is found that the nanorods have a high length-to-width ratio of more than 25 and the tadpole structure is formed after annealing. The discharge is characterized experimentally by the waveforms of applied voltage and discharge current. The potential gradient in the discharge volume and electric field gradient the around anode are demonstrated by particle-in-cell (PIC) numerical simulation and are considered to play an important role on the formation of one-dimensional nanorods by driving most of the CF clusters to the tip of nanorods. With the particle charging theory, the "one-dimensional activated growth model limited by an electrical field gradient" is proposed for the growth mechanism of nanocrystalline film in atmospheric plasmas.