Issue 24, 2020

Bottom-up device fabrication via the seeded growth of polymer-based nanowires

Abstract

The bottom-up assembly of nanoelectronic devices from molecular building blocks is a target of widespread interest. Herein we demonstrate an in situ seeded growth approach to produce a nanowire-based electrical device. This exploits the chemisorption of block terpolymer-based seed fibres with a thiophene-functionalised corona onto metal electrodes as the initial step. We then use these surface-bound seeds to initiate the growth of well-defined one-dimensional fibre-like micelles via the seeded growth method known as “Living crystallisation-driven self-assembly’’ and demonstrate that they are capable of spanning an interelectrode gap. Finally, a chemical oxidation step was used to transform the nanofibres into nanowires to generate a two-terminal device. This seeded growth approach of growing well-defined circuit elements provides a useful new design tool for bottom-up device fabrication.

Graphical abstract: Bottom-up device fabrication via the seeded growth of polymer-based nanowires

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Edge Article
Submitted
08 Apr 2020
Accepted
01 Jun 2020
First published
01 Jun 2020
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY license

Chem. Sci., 2020,11, 6222-6228

Bottom-up device fabrication via the seeded growth of polymer-based nanowires

O. El-Zubir, E. L. Kynaston, J. Gwyther, A. Nazemi, O. E. C. Gould, G. R. Whittell, Benjamin. R. Horrocks, I. Manners and A. Houlton, Chem. Sci., 2020, 11, 6222 DOI: 10.1039/D0SC02011G

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

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