A team of researchers from the Swansea University recently discovered some new ways for improving technology for electrical contact on smallest scales with some simple alterations in nanowires. This technology can always be used further in development of enhanced devices based over nanomaterials. Professor Steve Wilks from this University says, “With the advent of nanotechnology, new technologies have emerged such as chemical and biological sensors, quantum computing, energy harvesting, lasers, and environmental and photon-detectors. But there is a need to develop electrical contact preparation techniques to ensure these devices become an everyday reality. Traditional methods of engineering electrical contacts have been applied to nanomaterials but often neglect the nanoscale effects that nanoscientists have worked so hard to uncover .Currently, there isn’t a design toolbox to make electrical contacts of chosen properties to nanomaterials and in some respects the research is lagging behind our potential application of the enhanced materials.”
This team made use of special experimental equipment for measuring how nanoscale modifications impact the electrical performance. The experiments done by them found that some basic changes to the edge of catalyst can switch on or switch off the dominant kind of electrical conduction. Dr. Lord concludes that, “The experiments had a simple premise but were challenging to optimize and allow atomic-scale imaging of the interfaces. However, it was essential to this study and will allow many more materials to be investigated in a similar way. This research will allow engineers to reliably produce electrical contacts which is essential for nanomaterials to be used in the technologies of tomorrow. This work could lead to new technologies such as transient electronics that are devices that diminish and vanish without a trace which is an essential property when they are applied as diagnostic tools inside the human body.”
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