Nanowires, insulated

Wang, Z. Watson, M. D. Wu. J. Mullen, K. 2004. Partially stripped insulated nanowires A lightly substituted hexa-pen-hexabenzocoronene-based columnar liquid crystal. Chem. Commun., 2004, 336-7. 

Figure 11.11. Integration of nanowire photonics with silicon electronics. Schematic illustrating fabrication of hybrid structures. A silicon-on-insulator (SOI) substrate is patterned by standard electron-beam or photolithography followed by reactive ion etching. Emissive NWs are then aligned onto the patterned SOI substrate to form photonic sources. [Reprinted with permission from Ref. 59. Copyright 2005 Wiley-VCH Verlag.]...

Polymers consisting of but not limited to poly thiophene, polypyrrole and poly aniline have been extensively used to make polymer nanofibers. In general, any metal that can be electroplated has most likely appeared in a nanowire. Semiconductors, polymers, and insulators have also been used in the design of nanowires.Furthermore, different metals can be plated in succession to give striped nanowires. 

Using scanning probe microscope one can follow the manipulation process. For instance, the nanotweezers were shown to be able to grab and pick up clusters or nanowires with diameter of 500 nm. Moreover, one can immediately probe their electrical properties, since the tweezer arms serve as conducting wires. The probing may not be limited to manmade materials but it can also be used to manipulate and modify substructures within cells once the nanowire tips will be insulated. 

For nanowires embedded in an insulating matrix with a large band gap (e.g., alumina or mica), electrons are well confined within the wires. Thus, to a good approximation, the electron wavefunction, [Pg.186]

Fabrication procedure of gold nanodisk electrodes (NEEs) is schematically shown in Fig. 3.14 (Menon and Martin 1995 Pereira et al. 2006). Step I A piece of the Au/Au-PC/Au membrane is first affixed to a piece of adhesive aluminum foil tape (Fig. 3.14a). Step II A rectangular strip of a copper foil, with a conductive adhesive, is then affixed to the upper Au-coated surface of the Au/Au-PC/Au membrane (Fig. 3.14b). This Cu foil tape acts as a current collector and working electrode lead for the NEE. Step III The upper Au surface layer from the portion of the Au/Au-PC/Au membrane not covered by the Cu foil tape is then removed by simply applying and then removing a strip of Scotch tape. Removal of the Au surface layer exposes the disk-shaped ends of the Au nanowires within the pores of the membrane (Fig. 3.14c). These nanodisks will become the active electrode elements. Step IV The NEE assembly is heat treated at 150°C for 15 min. This produces a water-tight seal between the Au nanowires and the pore walls. Finally, strips of strapping tape are applied to the lower and upper surfaces of the assembly to insulate the Al and Cu foil tapes (Fig. 3.14d). 

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