Strain Relief Guided Growth of Atomic Nanowires in a Cu₃N-Cu(110) Molecular Network

A self-corrugated Cu₃N-Cu(110) molecular network shows the potential to overcome the element dependence barrier as demonstrated by epitaxial growth of atomic nanowires (∼1  nm in width) among various 3d, 4d, and 5d elements. Scanning tunneling microscopy shows that all of the investigated atomic nanowires share an identical structure, featuring uniform width, height, orientation and the same minimum separation distance. Ab initio study reveals that the formation mechanism of atomic nanowires can be directly attributed to a strain relief guided asymmetric occupation of atoms on the originally symmetric crest zone of the corrugated network.