Hybrid Structures Combine Strengths of Carbon Nanotubes and Nanowires

Hybrid Structures Combine Strengths of Carbon Nanotubes and Nanowires: "The impressive conductivity of carbon nanotubes makes them promising materials for a wide variety of electronic applications, but techniques to attach individual nanotubes to metal contacts have proven challenging. The new approach allows the precise attachment of carbon nanotubes to individual metal pins, offering a practical solution to the problem of using carbon nanotubes as interconnects and devices in computer chips.

[Hybrid Structures Combine Strengths of Carbon Nanotubes and Nanowires]
An electron microscope image of a hybrid structure made from a gold nanowire (middle) and carbon nanotubes. Credit: Rensselaer/Fung Suong Ou
“This technique allows us to bridge different pieces of the nanoelectronics puzzle, taking us a step closer to the realization of nanotube-based electronics,” said Fung Suong Ou, the paper’s corresponding author and a graduate student in materials science and electrical engineering at Rensselaer. "