Nanowire

Crystalline 2×2-atom tin selenide nanowire grown inside a single-wall carbon nanotube (tube diameter ≈1 nm).[1]

A nanowire is a nanostructure in the form of a wire with the diameter of the order of a nanometre (10−9 m). More generally, nanowires can be defined as structures that have a thickness or diameter constrained to tens of nanometers or less and an unconstrained length. At these scales, quantum mechanical effects are important—which coined the term "quantum wires".

Many different types of nanowires exist, including superconducting (e.g. YBCO[2]), metallic (e.g. Ni, Pt, Au, Ag), semiconducting (e.g. silicon nanowires (SiNWs), InP, GaN) and insulating (e.g. SiO2, TiO2).

Molecular nanowires are composed of repeating molecular units either organic (e.g. DNA) or inorganic (e.g. Mo6S9−xIx).

  1. ^ Carter, Robin; Suyetin, Mikhail; Lister, Samantha; Dyson, M. Adam; Trewhitt, Harrison; Goel, Sanam; Liu, Zheng; Suenaga, Kazu; Giusca, Cristina; Kashtiban, Reza J.; Hutchison, John L.; Dore, John C.; Bell, Gavin R.; Bichoutskaia, Elena; Sloan, Jeremy (2014). "Band gap expansion, shear inversion phase change behaviour and low-voltage induced crystal oscillation in low-dimensional tin selenide crystals". Dalton Trans. 43 (20): 7391–9. doi:10.1039/C4DT00185K. PMID 24637546.
  2. ^ Boston, R.; Schnepp, Z.; Nemoto, Y.; Sakka, Y.; Hall, S. R. (2014). "In Situ TEM Observation of a Microcrucible Mechanism of Nanowire Growth". Science. 344 (6184): 623–6. Bibcode:2014Sci...344..623B. doi:10.1126/science.1251594. hdl:1983/8f23c618-23f8-46e1-a1d9-960a0b491b1f. PMID 24812400. S2CID 206555658.