Semiconductor nanowires: what good are they?

Synopsis

Semiconductor nanotechnology is the foundation of today’s electronic devices. Traditionally this has involved removing material by a technique called lithography, starting with a high quality crystal of silicon or some other semiconductor, and etching away material and adding metals for contacts to form miniature nano-devices. I will present some of our work on a bottom up approach where we grow nanocrystals directly from the bottom up by an additive process, and investigate what sorts of properties they could have. I will focus on two examples: gallium arsenide based p-n nanowire devices for light harvesting, and zinc oxide nanowires for potential quantum information applications.