Self-assembly of antimony nanowires on graphite

One-dimensional (1D) semimetals (e.g., antimony and bismuth) are excellent thermoelectric materials. We demonstrate the self-assembly of 1D Sb nanowires on highly oriented pyrolytic graphite, along with structures of other dimensionality. Comparing with an Sb crystal in ambient condition, our scanning tunneling microscopy analysis indicates that these Sb nanowires have a compressed lattice structure, which is likely formed under the Laplace pressure that can be quite large in a nanostructure. The conditions for growing aligned semimetal nanowires exclusively are discussed.