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Optical trapping and integration of semiconductor nanowire assemblies in water

Nature Materials volume 5, pages 97–101 (2006)Cite this article

Abstract

Semiconductor nanowires have received much attention owing to their potential use as building blocks of miniaturized electrical1, nanofluidic2 and optical devices3. Although chemical nanowire synthesis procedures have matured and now yield nanowires with specific compositions4 and growth directions5, the use of these materials in scientific, biomedical and microelectronic applications is greatly restricted owing to a lack of methods to assemble nanowires into complex heterostructures with high spatial and angular precision. Here we show that an infrared single-beam optical trap can be used to individually trap, transfer and assemble high-aspect-ratio semiconductor nanowires into arbitrary structures in a fluid environment. Nanowires with diameters as small as 20 nm and aspect ratios of more than 100 can be trapped and transported in three dimensions, enabling the construction of nanowire architectures that may function as active photonic devices. Moreover, nanowire structures can now be assembled in physiological environments, offering new forms of chemical, mechanical and optical stimulation of living cells.

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Figure 1: Setup for the trapping experiments and the procedure for nanowire docking at a surface.
Figure 2: Oscillations of optically trapped semiconductor nanowires.
Figure 3: Demonstration of nanowire junctions and assemblies built using optical trapping.

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Acknowledgements

We thank J. Choy, J. Feigelman, C. Hodges, the Yang Lab (A. Tao, H. Yan, A. Hochbaum and D. Sirbuly) and M. van Duijn. P.J.P. thanks the NSF for Graduate Research Support and H.S. thanks the Hertz Foundation. This work was supported in part by the University of California, Berkeley (J.L.), the Beckman Foundation and the Department of Energy (P.Y.).

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Authors and Affiliations

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

    Peter J. Pauzauskie & Peidong Yang

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

    Aleksandra Radenovic, Eliane Trepagnier, Hari Shroff & Jan Liphardt

  3. Physical Biosciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California, 94720, USA

    Aleksandra Radenovic, Eliane Trepagnier, Hari Shroff & Jan Liphardt

  4. Biophysics Graduate Group, University of California, Berkeley, California, 94720, USA

    Eliane Trepagnier, Hari Shroff & Jan Liphardt

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

    Peidong Yang

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  1. Peter J. Pauzauskie
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Correspondence to Peidong Yang or Jan Liphardt.

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Pauzauskie, P., Radenovic, A., Trepagnier, E. et al. Optical trapping and integration of semiconductor nanowire assemblies in water. Nature Mater 5, 97–101 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat1563

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