TechBlog

Scientists have created silicon nanowires that are perfect—at least atomically. Down at the single-atom level, the identical wires have no bumps, bends, or other imperfections. They are perfectly crystalline, even more so than bulk silicon. The full array of nanowires is also highly parallel, and each wire is an excellent metallic conductor.

This research may be an important step forward for nanotechnology. Nanowires play a key role in developing nanoelectronics applications, and silicon nanowires are particularly important because of the central function that silicon plays in the semiconductor industry and current technologies. Some scientists believe that silicon nanowires will overtake carbon nanotubes in popularity, and they are being eyed for a variety of electronics applications and even quantum computing.

Therefore, the ability to create straight, identical, parallel, and atomically smooth nanowires could lead to new developments in nanoelectronics.