Growing One‐Dimensional Metallic Nanowires by Dielectrophoresis

Abstract

We report an electrical-field-controlled growth process for the directed bottom-up assembly of one-dimensional palladium nanowires between microfabricated electrodes. The wires, grown from an aqueous palladium salt solution by dielectrophoresis, have a thickness of only 5-10 nm and a length of up to several micrometers. The growth process depends largely on both the strength of the applied ac field and the concentration of the metal salt solution. The conditions for optimum growth are evaluated. Room-temperature current-voltage measurements show ohmic behavior and indicate electromigration effects at higher voltages. Low-temperature transport measurements reveal localization effects with a characteristic resistance minimum at 20 K. The temperature dependence below the minimum shows the wires to be one dimensional in their electron-transport properties. The investigated growth method is capable of building complex circuit patterns for future nanoelectronics.

AC electrokinetics of conducting microparticles: A review

“…Since then, several works have extensively reported the use of metal nanoparticles for bridging electrodes [81][82][83][84][85][86][87][88]. The influence of signal frequency on the metal nanoparticle assembly in small gaps between electrodes was studied in ref.…”

Dielectrophoretically assembled carbon nanotube‐metal hybrid structures with reduced contact resistance

“…We assume that these conditions can be satisfied at different sites of the sample: (i) In agreement with the recently reported mechanism for the initiation of metal nanowire growth [12], metal will be deposited to small inhomogeneities at the gold electrodes as these cause high electric field gradients. (ii) Metal is also expected to be deposited by DEP at regions of the CNT bridge having high resistance which is -as sketched in Fig.…”

“…The as-produced CNT bundles were dispersed in water by sonication in presence of RNA as described in Reference [13]. The preparation of the palladium salt stock solution in 10 mM HEPES buffer (pH 6.2) is described elsewhere [12].…”

“…Now, the following nanotube gets deposited at the tip of the already deposited CNT, consequently an electrical bridge of in-series assembled CNTs grows towards the opposite electrode. Recently, we have demonstrated that one-dimensional metallic nanowires can be directly grown from a metal salt solution when both high electrical field magnitude and gradient is accomplished to achieve a sufficiently high enough dielectrophoretic force to manipulate and deposit hydrated palladium ions by DEP [12]. Here, we apply this method as post-treatment to the already deposited CNT bridges to achieve a reduction of the contact resistances.…”

Synthesis and Applications of Noble Metal and Metal Silicide and Germanide 1-Dimensional Nanostructures

“…strategies to grow noble metal NWs. Although many studies have been reported on the synthesis of noble metal NWs, [22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29] perfectly single-crystalline noble metal NWs without surface contaminations have not been reported yet. We provide a new strategy for the synthesis of single-crystalline noble metal NWs.…”