This article's lead section may be too short to adequately summarize the key points. (February 2022) |
Part of a series of articles on |
Nanoelectronics |
---|
Single-molecule electronics |
Solid-state nanoelectronics |
Related approaches |
Portals |
![]() |
A nanowire is a nanostructure in the form of a wire with the diameter of the order of a nanometre (10−9 metres). More generally, nanowires can be defined as structures that have a thickness or diameter constrained to tens of nanometers or less and an unconstrained length. At these scales, quantum mechanical effects are important—which coined the term "quantum wires".
Many different types of nanowires exist, including superconducting (e.g. YBCO[2]), metallic (e.g. Ni, Pt, Au, Ag), semiconducting (e.g. silicon nanowires (SiNWs), InP, GaN) and insulating (e.g. SiO2, TiO2).
Molecular nanowires are composed of repeating molecular units either organic (e.g. DNA) or inorganic (e.g. Mo6S9−xIx).