Researchers develop catalyst-free metallic nanowire building technology

SEOUL, Jan. 17 (Yonhap) -- South Korean researchers have developed a technology
to easily make metallic nanowires that can help mass-produce third-generation
memory devices, a state technical institute said Sunday.
The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in Daejeon, 160
kilometers south of Seoul, said a team led by Kim Bong-soo has successfully
created a defect-free nanowire with superelastic properties.
The metallic nanowires can achieve "expitaxial growth" -- the ability to "grow"
in a pre-set pattern without using catalysts -- which is vital for making
futuristic memory devices, medical sensors and antennae.
"There is still work to be done, but if the technology can be refined, it can
bring about new growth in the global memory industry," the KAIST nanotech
professor said.
The development, published in the latest on-line issue of "Nano Letters" journal,
is noteworthy because until now, catalyst-free expitaxial growth has only been
achieved with nanowires made with semiconducting materials, while metals such as
gold and palladium required an agent to grow following a designated pattern.
The school said Kim's team is the first in the world to control the amount of
steam, temperatures and pressure needed to make nanowires from gold and palladium
without resorting to catalysts that affect performance and purity. It said that
using this technology, various metallic materials could be made to grow according
to pre-set designs on circuit boards.
Nanowires have a diameter of a few nanometers and were categorized by the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2004 as being one of 10 most important
technologies that can shape the future. A nanometers is one-billionth of a meter.
yonngong@yna.co.kr
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