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Volume 4 Issue 12, December 2009

Volume 4 Issue 12

Researchers are able to control many of the properties of semiconductor nanowires including their composition, doping, crystal structure and orphology. However, progress towards the ab initio design and growth of hierarchical nanostructures has been limited. Now Charles Lieber and co-workers have demonstrated a 'nanotectonic' approach that provides iterative control over the nucleation and growth of nanowires, and they have used this approach to grow kinked or zigzag nanowires in which straight sections of controllable length are separated by triangular joints. Moreover, the growth direction remains coherent along the nanowire. They have also grown nanowires with specific device functions, such as p-n diodes and field-effect transistors, localized at the kinked junctions. The image on the cover is a composite of the same false-colour scanning electron microscope image of a single multiply-kinked nanowire with a diameter of 80 nm and a segment length of 1 âμm.

Image credit: B. Tian and C. Lieber.

Letter p824

Editorial

Thesis

  • Thesis |

    A 1959 lecture by Richard Feynman has become an important document in the history of nanotechnology but, as Chris Toumey reports, there are disagreements about when it became important, and why.

    • Chris Toumey

  • Thesis |

    Irrespective of what he got right and what he got wrong in his famous 1959 lecture, Richard Feynman's vision and imagination have had an important role in the development of nanoscience and nanotechnology, as Richard Jones reports.

    • Richard Jones

Feature

  • Feature |

    In 1959 Richard Feynman called for researchers to improve the resolution of the electron microscope, and they have — but resolution is only part of the story.

    • Michael Segal

  • Feature |

    Nanotechnology could have an impact on many areas of the food industry, including packaging, nutrient delivery and food quality, but it is too early to tell if it will be embraced by food companies and the general public.

    • Ai Lin Chun

Research Highlights

News & Views

  • News & Views |

    Nanoparticles can have an adverse impact on cells, even when there is a barrier between the cells and the source of the nanoparticles. Both direct and indirect effects should therefore be included in assessments of nanoparticle safety.

    • Päivi Myllynen

  • News & Views |

    By measuring the motion of a nanomechanical oscillator with an extremely small error, researchers have passed a milestone on the road to measurements of position at the ultimate limit set by quantum mechanics.

    • Aashish Clerk

  • News & Views |

    Magnetic nanoparticles and gold-plated carbon nanotubes allow rapid detection of circulating tumour cells in the blood vessels of mice using two-colour photoacoustic methods.

    • Roger J. Zemp

  • News & Views |

    • Michael Segal

  • News & Views |

    Single-walled carbon nanotubes can be dissolved in superacids to produce solutions that should make it easier to process nanotubes into bulk structures.

    • Alan Windle

Review Article

  • Review Article |

    This article reviews the emergence of the atomic force microscope as a tool capable of creating nanostructures at room temperature, one atom at a time.

    • Oscar Custance
    • Ruben Perez
    • Seizo Morita

  • Review Article |

    Arrays of semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes are well suited for use in radiofrequency transistors. This article reviews progress towards nanotube-based radiofrequency devices in terms of device physics, circuit design and manufacturing challenges.

    • Chris Rutherglen
    • Dheeraj Jain
    • Peter Burke

Letter

Article

Corrigendum

Focus

  • Focus |

    Plenty of room revisited

    50 years after Richard Feynman delivered his famous lecture, 'There's plenty of room at the bottom', Nature Nanotechnologylooks at its influence on subsequent developments in nanoscience and technology.

Find nanotechnology articles, nanomaterial data and patents all in one place. Visit Nano by Nature Research

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