Boffins integrate nanowire devices directly onto silicon
9 May 2008 | 13:48 BST
Tiddly blighters
BOFFINS claim to have come up with a novel way making nanowire photonic and electronic integrated circuits.
The researchers were able to create a low cost and high volume way of getting nanowire, whose diameter is one-thousandth that of a human hair, straight onto silicon.
The team from Harvard University, working with colleagues from the German universities of Jena, Gottingen, and Bremen, applied photolithography to spin-on glass technology, transmitting a circuit pattern onto a substrate using light.
The team’s methodology is akin to making a nanowire sandwhich, in that nanowire is put in between conductive substrate and a metal contact on top. Spin on glass acts as a spacer layer, when current is pushed through the nanowires, they start to act rather like light emitting diodes, with each different colour showing the type of semiconductor nanowire that was used.
The boffins reckon the process could be combined with other existing methods for controlling the placement and alignment of nanowires over large areas. The processes would enable integrated nanowire photonic circuits in a manufacturing setting.
The fact that nanowires can be made up from materials used in both electronics and photonics means that there is a lot of potential for amalgamating light emitters and silicon technology. The possibilities are wide reaching, with light emitters ranging from infrared to ultra-violet.
A spokesBoffin said the discovery could well, “lead to the development of a completely new class of integrated circuits, such as large arrays of ultra-small nanoscale lasers that could be designed as high-density optical interconnects or be used for on-chip chemical sensing". µ
L’Inq
Nanotech Web
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