Mn Nanowhiskers of a Novel Hexagonal Phase Grown from Hydrogen Activated Laves Phase Alloys

With the aid of hydrogenation/dehydrogenation, nanorod whiskers of transition metal Mn can grow spontaneously from Zr_1-xTi_xMnCr Laves phase alloys at room temperature. The finding introduces a distinguishingly different element into metal whisker family, and provides a potential technique for fabrication of one-dimensional metal nanostructures. Moreover, it is found that the segregated Mn in whiskers forms a novel hexagonal structure, which partially fulfills the long predicted allotropic form and adds more complexity to the structures of Mn.