What is a Nanowire?
A nanowire is a connecting structure that has a diameter of 10-9 meters (10-11) feet), which is extremely small. Also known as quantum wires, these connectors are used to connect tiny components together into very small circuits. These structures are no larger than a tenth of a nanometer wide. There is no restriction on how wide they can grown, but cannot grow more than a few nanometers in height. There are four different types of nanowires: metallic, semi-conducting, insulating and molecular. Metal nanowires are made from nickel, platinum or gold. While semi-conducting wires wires are comprised of silicon, indium phosphide or gallium nitride and insulating are made of silicon dioxide or titanium dioxide. To create a molecular nanowire, the process involves repeating organic or inorganic molecular units in a particular format. Nanowires are experimental and are not available in commercial or industrial applications. The conductivity and tiny size make them ideal for future computer pro
The name gives away much of it. Nanowires are incredibly tiny wires — they can be constructed from a variety of materials, depending on what you are trying to achieve. One thing you can build out of them is semi-conducting transistors — like we already use to store data! Except, now, it’s being built on a nano-scale, instead of microns. The methods used in assembly are also a part of what makes them special. Several tested techniques include self-assembled molecules or ferroelectric thin films, all of which supposedly require less resources and overhead than other things like… flash memory. Currently, though, these are imperfect test procedures, and as such, there are some problems in the finished product. Other tests that have been done have been attempts at melding current manufactoring techniques with nanowires. One such method — implementing nanowires with oxide/nitrate/oxide layers — have been successfully tested: see stacks.iop.org/Nano/18/235204. The resultant product had
• Creating Nanowires: Electrochemical Deposition • Experiment 1: Magnetic Manipulation/Chaining • Experiment 2: Alloy Wires • Experiment 3: Biological Cell Manipulation • Conclusion: Nanowire Potential Application Introduction: What is a nanowire? A nanowire is a solid metal cylinder with a diameter from 10s to 100s of nanometers and a length on the order of microns. Figure 1 below shows an SEM (scanning electron microscope) image of a nickel nanowire I made. Since the diameter of a nanowire approaches the atomic level, quantum effects are important. These quantum effects can lead to differences in properties such as conductivity between a nanowire and a bulk sample of the same material. Why are we interested in nanowires? Nanowires are of great interest for their potential applications in electronics, separation chemistry, and biomedical engineering. These applications will be discussed in more detail later.
