Synthesis of Silver Nanowires with Controllable Diameter and Simple Tool to Evaluate their Diameter, Concentration and Yield.

Simple solvothermal method was used to synthesize of uniform silver nanowires with the controllable diameter (17, 20, 35, 70 and 100 nm). It is the first report on the solvothermal synthesis of ultra‐thin silver nanowires (17 nm) with the high aspect ratio (>1000). Knowing silver nanowires diameter, length and yield after synthesis are a critical step to classify them for the final goal. Up to now, although the length of nanowires can be measured with the optical microscope, but to estimate the diameter, costly high‐resolution microscopic techniques are necessary. Herein, UV/Vis spectroscopy as an easy and cost‐effective tool is introduced to evaluate the diameter and yield of nanowires. For this purpose, after synthesis and purification of silver different nanowires; from their UV/Vis spectra, a new equation for evaluation nanowires diameter was extracted. In addition, for the first time, absorption coefficients (ϵ) of nanowires with different diameter thickness were reported and a new equation to estimate absorption coefficients to calculate concentration (mg/ml) and yield of silver nanowires was extracted. These equations have good agreement with real data and are independent of the length of nanowires. UV/Vis spectroscopy can be used to estimate the diameter, concentration and yield of silver nanowires suspensions. It is simple, fast and cost effective tool that can be replaced with expensive high resolution SEM and TEM microscopic techniques that are not available in most research laboratories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]