“Nanocigarette”. Upon heating silica coated silver nanowires (diameter ~ 100 nm) to 600 °C silver (brighter material on the images) starts to swell out of the silica shell and by doing so, starts to break the shell and accumulate at the end of the wire (creating a “cloud of smoke”). Thickness of the silica shell is only about 30 nm, so it is almost transparent for electrons and therefore it can be seen that some of the silver is still encapsulated the shell. Image is taken in the Institute of Physics, University of Tartu using a scanning electron microscope (FEI Nova NanoSEM 450). Author: Mikk Vahtrus.
<a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Mvahtrus&amp;action=edit&amp;redlink=1" class="new" title="User:Mvahtrus (page does not exist)">Mikk Vahtrus</a>
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<span class="int-own-work" lang="en">Own work</span>