(92f) Dispersed Nanoelectrodes Devices

Integration of nanoparticles and nanostructures in macro - and micro - electronic devices is pushing the technological progress toward new frontiers of performance and miniaturization. Nevertheless, sometimes the benefits of the nano - scale are limited by the poor electrical conductivity of these nanostructured components. As band bending, surface depletion and particle functionality scales with decreasing size it is challenging to achieve both reasonable conductivity and maximal device performance. Here, we describe a novel electrodes assembly strategy to control the resistance of a nanostructured layer while maximizing its performance. Nano - electrodes with tailored conductivity are stochastically deposited either below or above a functional nanostructured film thereby decreasing the effective length of the high resistive components. As the distance between the electrodes is also in the nano - scale the total film resistance is decreased by several orders of magnitude. We demonstrate the feasibility of this assembly strategy by fabrication of several chemo - resistive solid state gas sensors with controlled resistance and ultra high sensitivity.