Nanowire development and characterization for applications in biosensing

Abstract

A nanowire is an extremely thin wire with a diameter on the order of a few nanometers and with lengths orders of magnitude larger than its diameter. The physical properties of nanowires at this scale are expected to deviate significantly from the bulk metal, due to confinement and surface effects. For example, the electrical conductivity of the wires changes considerably, due to the drastic increase in the surface-to-volume ratio, which can be exploited for sensing. Mechanical properties, such as the yield strength, are important parameters that need to be characterized for applications like flexible circuits. In order to study the nanowire properties one needs to arrange them on a surface in a controlled way. © Springer Science+Business Media LLC 2009.