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Physical vapor deposition provides a controllable means of growing two-dimensional metallic thin films and one-dimensional metallic nanorods. While theories exist for the growth of metallic thin films, their counterpart for the growth of metallic nanorods is absent. Because of this absence, the lower limit of the nanorod diameter is theoretically unknown; consequently the experimental pursuit of the smallest nanorods has no clear target.Xiaobin Niu and his colleagues recentlyreporta closed-form theory that defines the diameter of the smallest metallic nanorods using physical vapor deposition. Further,theyverify the theory using lattice kineticMonte Carlosimulations and validate the theory using published experimental data. Finally,theycarry out a series of theory-guided experiments to grow well-separated metallic nanorods of 10 nm in diameter, which are the smallest ever reported using physical vapor deposition. |