Fig. 1. (a) Schematic of experimental system for PLNS. (b) Scanning electron microscope (SEM) image of Ag NWs with inset showing the size distribution of Ag NPs in Ag NWs. (c) Plasmon-enhanced electric field as a function of interparticle gap for light polarization direction parallel and vertical to the interparticle axis. (d) Schematic illustration of PLNS with increasing laser irradiation time. (e) SEM images of the morphological changes of Ag NWs in PLNS process.

Fig. 2. TEM images of Ag NWs for overall (a), local (b) and magnified (c) topographies before the laser illumination. (d) Typical HRTEM images and (e) SAED patterns of Ag NPs before the laser illumination. TEM images of Ag NWs for overall (f), local (g) and magnified (h) topographies after the illumination. (i) Typical HRTEM images and (j) SAED pattern of Ag NPs after laser illumination for 15 min.

Fig. 3. (a) Schematic of two-probe measurement method. (b) I-V curve of the fabricated Ag NWs before and after the laser nanosoldering. (c, f) Morphology of Ag NWs cut by focus ion beam. (d, g) AFM images and the height profile of the Ag NWs before and after the laser nanosoldering.

Fig. 4. (a) Measured resistance of the Ag NWs electrodes as a function of the laser nanosoldering power density with the laser nanosoldering time of 11 min. (b) Measured resistance of the Ag NWs electrodes as a function of the laser nanosoldering time with laser nanosoldering power density of 7.01 MW/cm².

Fig. 5. (a) Size distribution of Ag NPs in the Ag NWs fabricated in the silver ion contained precursor solutions at different concentrations of surfactant. (b) Schematic of simulation setup, a planar configuration is taken as an example. (c) Calculated temperature increasing ΔT (°C) at the surface of Ag NPs as a function of Ag NPs size, considering the local light intensity increased 300 times. The black areas (hot-spots) present the simulation results of the temperature distributions when the enhanced light field intensity increases 10 (d) and 300 (e) times by using FEM method.