Quantum Times

Engineering researchers simplify process to make world's tiniest wires

Surface tension isn?t a very powerful force, but it matters for small things ? water bugs, paint, and, it turns out, nanowires.Nanowires are so tiny that a human hair would dwarf them ? some have diameters 150 billionths of a meter. Because of their small size, surface tension that occurs during the manufacturing process pulls them together, limiting their usefulness. This is a problem because the wires are seen as a potential core element of new and more powerful microelectronics, solar cells, batteries and medical tools.But in a paper in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces now online, a University of Florida engineering researcher says he has found an inexpensive solution.Kirk Ziegler, an assistant professor of chemical engineering, said nanowires are most often made today with a process that involves the immersion of the wires.When complete, each wire is supposed to poke up right next to the other from a flat surface, like bristles on a Lilliputian toothbrush. But Ziegler said the wires are

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