Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Supramolecular chemistry

Molecular wires get connected

Nature volume 480, pages 326–327 (2011)Cite this article

Subjects

A long-standing issue in nanotechnology is how to connect molecular electronic devices. A method for splicing nanoscale wires made from different materials paves the way for a solution to this problem.

What could be easier than joining two wires together? Just about anything, if the wires in question are only 14 nanometres thick. Such nanowires are the future of miniaturization for electronics, but are so small that they cannot be handled with tweezers or through other mechanical means. Another problem is that, so far, such wires have been composed of only one type of molecule, which has limited their potential as components of future electronic devices1. Reporting in Science, Zhang et al.2 now describe an approach for making nanowires in which tubular sections made from different molecular building blocks are connected together. Developing methods for joining materials that have different electronic properties is an essential step towards building nanometre-scale electronic devices such as diodes and transistors.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Get just this article for as long as you need it

$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Stepwise self-assembly of molecular wires.

References

  1. Hill, J. P. et al. Science 304, 1481–1483 (2004).

    Article  CAS  ADS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Zhang, W. et al. Science 334, 340–343 (2011).10.1126/science.1210369

    Article  CAS  ADS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Novoselov, K. S. et al. Nature 438, 197–200 (2005).

    Article  CAS  ADS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Lehn, J.-M. Supramolecular Chemistry — Concepts and Perspectives (Wiley, 1995).

    Book  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dario M. Bassani is at the Institute of Molecular Sciences, University of Bordeaux 1, CNRS UMR 5255, Bâtiment A12, 351 cours de la libération, 33405 Talence Cedex, France.,

    Dario M. Bassani

Authors
  1. Dario M. Bassani
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Dario M. Bassani.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Bassani, D. Molecular wires get connected. Nature 480, 326–327 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/480326a

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/480326a

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing