Nanowire Breakthrough Could Lead to Paper Thin Tablets and TV Displays
Posted on April 29, 2014
Junhao Lin, a Vanderbilt University Ph.D. student and visiting scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), used a finely focused beam of electrons to create flexible metallic wires that are only three atoms wide. These wires are one thousandth the width of the microscopic wires used to connect the transistors in today's integrated circuits. The nanowires could lead to the development of flexible, paper-thin tablets and television displays. A molecular model of the nanowires is pictured above.
Lin's advisor, Sokrates Pantelides, University Distinguished Professor of Physics and Engineering at Vanderbilt University, says in a statement, "If you let your imagination go, you can envision tablets and television displays that are as thin as a sheet of paper that you can roll up and stuff in your pocket or purse."
Lin used materials called transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) to create the nanowires. TMDCs are made by combining the metals molybdenum or tungsten with either sulfur or selenium. These semiconducting materials naturally form monolayers. Lin believes his nanowire technique will lead to huge research interest in nanolayer circuit design.
ORNL Wigner Fellow Wu Zhou says, "Junhao used a scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM) that is capable of focusing a beam of electrons down to a width of half an angstrom (about half the size of an atom) and aims this beam with exquisite precision."
A research paper was published here in Nature Nanotechnology.
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