Atomic-scale nanoviruses can now be produced on a scale

Researchers at Tokyo Metropolitan University have found a way to make self-assembled nanoviruses of transition metal ch coagenides on a scale using chemical vapor testimony. By changing the substrate where the wires form, it can tune how these wires are arranged, from the configuration of atomic thin sheets to the random network of bundles. This paves the way for industrial deployment in next-generation industrial electronics, including energy harvesting, and transparent, efficient, flexible devices.

Electronics means making things on the chip smaller features, for example, more computing power in the same space and better efficiency, which is needed to feed the growing huge demand of modern IT infrastructure driven by machine learning and artificial intelligence. . And as the devices get smaller, the same demands are made of a complex wiring that connects everything together. The ultimate goal will be a wire that is only one atom or two thick. Such nanoviruses will begin to take advantage of completely different physics as the electrons traveling through them increasingly dominate as if they were living in a one-dimensional world, rather than a 3-D space.

In fact, scientists already have materials such as carbon nanotubes and transition metal chocogenides (TMCs), alloys of transition metals and group 16 elements that can be self-assembled into atom-scale nanoviruses. Trouble is making them longer and on scale. The way to produce a large number of nanoviruses would be a game changer.

Now, a team led by Dr. Hong N. Lim of Tokyo Metropolitan University and associate professor Yasumitsu Miyata has devised a way to create long wires of unprecedented large-scale transition metal telluride nanoviruses. Using a process called chemical vapor deposition (CVD), they discovered that they could assemble TMC nanowires in different configurations depending on the surface or substrate they use as a template. Examples are shown in Figure 2; In (a), nanoviruses grown on a silicon / silica substrate, forming a random network of bundles; In (b), the wires are assembled in the set direction on the sapphire substrate following the composition of the sapphire crystal. By simply changing where they are grown, the team now has access to centimeter-sized wafers in the desired configuration, with a network of monolayers, boilers and bundles, all of different applications. They also found that the wire structure itself was very crystalline and orderly, and that their properties, including their excellent conductivity and 1D-like behavior, matched those found in theoretical predictions.

The large number of long, highly crystalline nanoviruses is sure to help physicists characterize and study these foreign formations in greater depth. Importantly, in transparent and flexible electronics, ultra-efficient devices and energy waste harvesting applications, it is an exciting step towards seeing real-world application of nuclear-thin wire.

Provided by Tokyo Metropolitan University