The Very Small Wires Responsible for Very Big Changes Across the Electronics Industry.
The world’s first computer measured 50 feet long and offered little functionality. Now, almost everyone walks around with a highly advanced computer, small enough to fit in the palm of their hand. Today, the electronics industry continues its historic push towards producing electronics capable of accomplishing more while taking up less space.
However, limits remain. While devices grow smaller and smaller, critical components such as wiring still restrict attempts to further reduce the size of electronics. These limitations highlight the importance of nanowires to the electronics industry.
Nanowires function in ways other wires cannot. They provide additional features and properties beyond their size. Keep reading to find out more about why nanowires are so important.
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What Are Nanowires?
Nanowires are precisely what they sound like: incredibly small wire filaments capable of transmitting electricity. Because of their design, nanowires provide both advantages and limitations.
The most significant feature of nanowires is their size. These tiny wires can be as long as desired, with lengths ranging from micrometers to meters. Their diameter, however, is always incredibly thin, measured on a nanometer (10−9 meters) scale. Because of this, nanowires meet width requirements where other wires fail.
In fact, Nanowires are so thin that they have a quantum effect. The space of the wire restricts the movement of the electrons within them and limits them to movement in one dimension. Such restricted movement is a type of quantum confinement. For this reason, nanowires are sometimes referred to as quantum wires.
The ability of nanowires to direct electrons in 1D renders unique properties. Electrons within the wire occupy discrete bands instead of a continuum of states. Electrons tunnel from well to well within these wires almost effortlessly. This tunneling creates superior conduction over traditional wires.
Nanowires transmit less electricity than traditional wires. However, bundling a series of nanowires together effectively compensates for this drawback.
Nanowires are available in many different materials. These include superconducting materials, metals, and even organic materials.
How Are Nanowires Used?
Incredibly small, nanowires function in any type of technology where size is an issue. This unique feature grows more pertinent as technology grows smaller and smaller.
Currently, required wiring restricts how small manufacturers can create devices. Nanowires break this limitation and allow device manufacturers to focus on scaling down other components, resulting in smaller devices overall.
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Transistors
Transistors generally follow Moore’s Law. Moore’s Law states that the number of microchip transistors doubles roughly every two years. This trend promotes increasingly smaller transistors. Smaller transistors require materials like nanowires to properly function.
Nanowires fit within the dielectric gates of small transistors and control the flow of electrons within the transistor. While impurities typically negatively affect transistor function, incredibly small wires avoid many of these effects.
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Flexible Devices
Imagine a stack of papers as thick as a brick. Such a bundle offers little flexibility. In fact, such bundles provide stiff rigidity on par with a piece of wood with a similar thickness. Next, imagine a single sheet of paper. This single sheet affords superior flexibility and movement. Now, imagine something even thinner than a single sheet of paper. Something this thin offers flexibility advancements over a sheet of paper equivalent to the difference between a sheet of paper versus a whole stack.
This is where nanowires come into play. They can fold and flex in ways that traditional wires cannot.
Increasing interest in electronic devices that fold and flex lends further importance to the field of nanotechnology wires. Though foldable smartphones seemed impossible just a few years ago, manufacturers release new models of foldable smartphones and even tablets yearly now
Nanowires also improve the performance of these devices better. Tiny wire filaments discreetly integrate directly into the device screen, transmitting power without compromising the display.
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Sensors
Nanowires function like a sensor when programmed in a specific way. Specific nanowire configurations create sensors that function like field-effect transistors. These configurations serve as sensors capable of detecting a trigger condition, altering electron flow within the device in response, and sending signals that generate a corresponding response from a second device.
Such nanowire sensors offer important functionality on an incredibly small scale to measure or sense fluctuations in gasses, chemicals, biomolecules, and more.
Such sensors also fit within already small devices to measure device performance. Manufacturers incorporate nanowire sensors into the batteries within electric vehicles, a place where shedding size and weight is critical.
Nanowires and Electronics
Nanowires represent a technological marvel. Today, they make possible the amazing – and amazingly small – electronics that would be impossible to manufacture otherwise. As the technology behind nanowires develops, future technologies we cannot imagine today may drive markets and industries tomorrow.
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