NANOWIRES: Conductive characteristics and mass fabrication of nanoscale integrated circuit nanowires

• Research unit: EU RFP
• Project number: 96.0157

Key words (English)

Nanowires; fabrication; metrology; electron transport properties; soft lithography; imprint; single electron transistor; nanoscience; nanotechnology

Alternative project number (English)

EU project number: EP 23.238

Research programs (English)

EU-programme: 4. Frame Research Programme - 1.3 Telematic systems

Short description (English)

See abstract

Abstract (English)

The continued miniaturization of microelectronics to the domain of the nanometer and individual atoms and molecules is widely perceived to be a crucial issue in future information technologies. Nanotechnology raises a whole range of new paradigms and operational principles and requires new reliable and economically favorable fabrication methods. Key issues in nanoelectronics are not only the miniaturization of devices. The basic scientific and technological implication of metallic or molecular interconnection of devices on the nanometer scale also includes new oˆperational principles and scaling laws. The project Nanowires is aimed at understanding future directions, potential problems and researches into the ultimate limits of fabrication and measurement of nanoscale wires. The key objectives of the project are:
To fabricate nanometer scale wiring using both metallic and molecular materials using a diverse range of methods, including parallel fabrication using elastomeric based lithography.
To test the electronics and mechanical properties of nanowires via automated testing devices and scanning probe microscope experiments.
To develop new strategies and approaches to nanoelectronic devices using nanometer scaled wiring and components including specialized molecular systems.
To model and design metallic and molecular interconnections.
The project is highly interdisciplinary and involves the close collaboration of experimentalists and theoreticians with backgrounds in theoretical quantum scale calculations, synthetic chemists as well as nanoscale physicists. During its duration of just two years Nanowires succeeded in all of its principal objectives and has gone beyond those in making a number of ground-breaking inroads into the science and patterning of metallic, molecular and magnetic materials with nanoscale dimensions.

References in databases (English)

Swiss Database: Euro-DB of the
State Secretariat for Education and Research
Hallwylstrasse 4
CH-3003 Berne, Switzerland
Tel. [phone]
Swiss Project-Number: 96.0157