Confinement-Guided Shaping of Semiconductor Nanowires and Nanoribbons: “Writing with Nanowires”

• Published in: Nano letters 2012-01, Vol.12 (1), p.7-12
• Main Authors: Pevzner, Alexander, Engel, Yoni, Elnathan, Roey, Tsukernik, Alexander, Barkay, Zahava, Patolsky, Fernando
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Cross-disciplinary physics: materials science; rheology; Crystallization - methods; Exact sciences and technology; Macromolecular Substances - chemistry; Materials science; Materials Testing; Methods of nanofabrication; Molecular Conformation; Nanocrystalline materials; Nanoscale materials and structures: fabrication and characterization; Nanostructure; Nanostructures - chemistry; Nanostructures - ultrastructure; Nanotechnology - methods; Nanowires; Particle Size; Physics; Polyimide resins; Quantum wires; Quartz; Semiconductors; Silicon substrates; Stability; Surface Properties; Synthesis; Two dimensional
• ISSN: 1530-6984; 1530-6992
• DOI: 10.1021/nl201527h

To fully exploit their full potential, new semiconductor nanowire building blocks with ab initio controlled shapes are desired. However, and despite the great synthetic advances achieved, the ability to control nanowire’s geometry has been significantly limited. Here, we demonstrate a simple confinement-guided nanowire growth method that enables to predesign not only the chemical and physical attributes of the synthesized nanowires but also allows a perfect and unlimited control over their geometry. Our method allows the synthesis of semiconductor nanowires in a wide variety of two-dimensional shapes such as any kinked (different turning angles), sinusoidal, linear, and spiral shapes, so that practically any desired geometry can be defined. The shape-controlled nanowires can be grown on almost any substrate such as silicon wafer, quartz and glass slides, and even on plastic substrates (e.g., Kapton HN).