Facile integration of ordered nanowires in functional devices

Abstract

The integration of one-dimensional (1D) nanostructures of non-industry-standard semiconductors infunctional devices following bottom-up approaches is still an open challenge that hampers the exploita-tion of all their potential. Here, we present a simple approach to integrate metal oxide nanowires inelectronic devices based on controlled dielectrophoretic positioning together with proof of conceptdevices that corroborate their functionality. The method is flexible enough to manipulate nanowiresof different sizes and compositions exclusively using macroscopic solution-based techniques in conven-tional electrode designs. Our results show that fully functional devices, which display all the advantagesof single-nanowire gas sensors, photodetectors, and even field-effect transistors, are thus obtained rightafter a direct assembly step without subsequent metallization processing. This paves the way to lowcost, high throughput manufacturing of general-purpose electronic devices based on non-conventionaland high quality 1D nanostructures driving up many options for high performance and new low energyconsumption devices.