Wafer-Scale Nanopatterning and Translation into High-Performance Piezoelectric Nanowires

• Published in: Nano letters 2010-11, Vol.10 (11), p.4595-4599
• Main Authors: Nguyen, Thanh D, Nagarah, John M, Qi, Yi, Nonnenmann, Stephen S, Morozov, Anatoli V, Li, Simonne, Arnold, Craig B, McAlpine, Michael C
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Condensed matter: structure, mechanical and thermal properties; Cross-disciplinary physics: materials science; rheology; Electrochemistry - methods; Exact sciences and technology; Low-dimensional structures (superlattices, quantum well structures, multilayers): structure, and nonelectronic properties; Materials science; Materials Testing; Methods of nanofabrication; Micro-Electrical-Mechanical Systems - methods; Nanocrystalline materials; Nanoscale materials and structures: fabrication and characterization; Nanoscale pattern formation; Nanostructures - chemistry; Nanostructures - ultrastructure; Particle Size; Photography - methods; Physics; Quantum wires; Surfaces and interfaces; thin films and whiskers (structure and nonelectronic properties)
• ISSN: 1530-6984; 1530-6992
• DOI: 10.1021/nl102619c

The development of a facile method for fabricating one-dimensional, precisely positioned nanostructures over large areas offers exciting opportunities in fundamental research and innovative applications. Large-scale nanofabrication methods have been restricted in accessibility due to their complexity and cost. Likewise, bottom-up synthesis of nanowires has been limited in methods to assemble these structures at precisely defined locations. Nanomaterials such as PbZr x Ti1−x O3 (PZT) nanowires (NWs)which may be useful for nonvolatile memory storage (FeRAM), nanoactuation, and nanoscale power generationare difficult to synthesize without suffering from polycrystallinity or poor stoichiometric control. Here, we report a novel fabrication method which requires only low-resolution photolithography and electrochemical etching to generate ultrasmooth NWs over wafer scales. These nanostructures are subsequently used as patterning templates to generate PZT nanowires with the highest reported piezoelectric performance (d eff ∼ 145 pm/V). The combined large-scale nanopatterning with hierarchical assembly of functional nanomaterials could yield breakthroughs in areas ranging from nanodevice arrays to nanodevice powering.