(651d) Creating Polymer-Templated Nanowire Array

Central to the integration of nanowires into functional devices is precise patterning of the nanowires. We have developed an approach to create well-defined arrays of one-dimensional polymeric nanostructures over a large area on micropatterned surfaces through a dewetting process, which is simulated using a commercial Volume of Fluid (VOF) software, Flow-3D®, and a coarse-grain molecular simulation. The polymers that have been successfully applied to this method include DNA, a widely-used molecular template for the preparation of various types of nanowires, and several other common polyelectrolytes. Electrically conductive nanowires can be produced simply by vapor deposition of metals on the polymer nanostructures. This technique is simple, robust, and of low cost, and has promise to be useful for the production of nanowire-based sensors of practical uses.