The alloying-induced electrical conductivity of metal-chalcogenolate nanowires.

Alloying is one of the most effective strategies to change the properties of inorganic–organic hybrid materials, but there are few reports of the alloying of one-dimensional nanowires with precise atomic structure due to the difficulties in obtaining the single crystals of nanowires themselves. Herein, we describe the synthesis and characterization of an alloyed one-dimensional Ag–Cu nanowire [Ag2.5Cu1.5(S-Adm)4]n. Compared with the unalloyed [Ag4(S-Adm)4]n, our novel alloyed nanowire exhibits good conductivity, and its resistivity (as a powder) was determined to be 107 Ω m by impedance analysis–consistent with that of a semiconductor. Accordingly, based on these properties combined with its excellent thermal stability and high-yielding, gram-scale synthesis, [Ag2.5Cu1.5(S-Adm)4]n is proposed for electronic-device applications.