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Dynamic manipulation and separation of individual semiconducting and metallic nanowires

Nature Photonics volume 2, pages 86–89 (2008)Cite this article

Abstract

The synthesis of nanowires has advanced in the past decade to the point where a vast range of insulating, semiconducting and metallic materials1 are available for use in integrated, heterogeneous optoelectronic devices at nanometre scales2. However, a persistent challenge has been the development of a general strategy for the manipulation of individual nanowires with arbitrary composition. Here we report that individual semiconducting and metallic nanowires with diameters below 20 nm are addressable with forces generated by optoelectronic tweezers3. Using 100,000 times less optical power density than optical tweezers, optoelectronic tweezers are capable of transporting individual nanowires with speeds four times greater than the maximum speeds achieved by optical tweezers. A real-time array of silver nanowires is formed using photopatterned virtual electrodes, demonstrating the potential for massively parallel assemblies. Furthermore, optoelectronic tweezers enable the separation of semiconducting and metallic nanowires, suggesting a broad range of applications for the separation and heterogeneous integration of one-dimensional nanoscale materials.

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Figure 1: OET manipulation of single silicon nanowire.
Figure 2: OET manipulation of silver nanowires.
Figure 3: Dynamic separation of semiconducting and metallic nanowires.
Figure 4: Large-scale assembly of nanowires.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) through the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research (Grant no. PN2 EY018228), Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) UPR-CONSRT, the Institute for Cell Mimetic Space Exploration (CMISE), the Dreyfus Foundation and the US Department of Energy (P.Y.). P.J.P. and A.T.O. thank the National Science Foundation (NSF) for a graduate research fellowship. Work at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory was supported by the Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences, Division of Materials Science and Engineering of the US Department of Energy, under contract no. DE-AC02-05CH11231. We thank the National Center for Electron Microscopy for the use of their facilities, A. Javey, R. Yerushalmi, Hsan-Yin Hsu, S. Neale, E. Sun and J. Valley for helpful discussions and suggestions, and also Jiaxing Huang, R. Diaz and E. Garnett for silver and silicon nanowire samples.

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Author notes

  1. Peter J. Pauzauskie

    Present address: Present address: Chemistry, Materials, and Life Sciences Directorate, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, 7000 East Avenue, L-235, Livermore, California 94551,

  2. Arash Jamshidi and Peter J. Pauzauskie: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical Engineering, University of California, California, Berkeley, 94720, USA

    Arash Jamshidi, Aaron T. Ohta, Jeffrey Chou & Ming C. Wu

  2. Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, 94720, California, USA

    Peter J. Pauzauskie & Peidong Yang

  3. Materials Science Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, 94720, California, USA

    Peter J. Pauzauskie & Peidong Yang

  4. Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, 94720, California, USA

    P. James Schuck

  5. Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Los Angeles, 90095, California, USA

    Pei-Yu Chiou

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Correspondence to Peidong Yang or Ming C. Wu.

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Jamshidi, A., Pauzauskie, P., Schuck, P. et al. Dynamic manipulation and separation of individual semiconducting and metallic nanowires. Nature Photon 2, 86–89 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2007.277

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