Labyrinth-Induced Faceted Electrochemical Growth

摘要

Theseus' heroic escape from the lethal fate awaiting him in the windings of the inextricable Cretan maze marks the start of a 5000 year old fascination with labyrinths and motion within them. A path-length bias of nucleated electrochemical growth in a 3D periodic nanomaze is equally intriguing, leading to facet formation of an intrinsically isotropic material in a porous, self-assembled gyroid network. In electrochemical growth, the facets reflect long, convoluted pathways through the intricate network of interconnected nanochannels to the nucleation site. Facet edges arise from the shortest paths, as substantiated by computer simulations. This is the first report of faceted electrochemical growth that is not based on the crys-tallographic order of the constituent building blocks, but rather reflects the symmetry of the template in which the material is synthesized.