Innovation and Development

Significant Achievement in T-shaped Nano Electronic Device

A T-shaped nano electronic device has been developed by the research group led by Prof. Liu Jinhuai and Prof. Huang Xingjiu, a member of the "Hundred Talents Program", from the Research Center for Biomimetic Functional Materials and Sensing Device of Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, CAS (Zheng Guo, et al., Materials Today 2011, 14, 42-49). Based on the anisotropic conductivity of single crystal nanostructure, the researchers propose a concept of nanoscale current splitter constructed by a single T-shaped SnO2 nanowire along different direction of crystal lattice. Combined a nanomanipulator with a micro-electromechanical system (MEMS) approach, T-shaped SnO2 nanowire current splitter device has been fabricated by its stem and branch along the growth direction of [101] and [010]. The most important result of this work is that without the need for an external gate the designed nanodevice is analogous to the operation of a field effect transistor. By contacting the three branches of a T-junction as the gate, source and drain, some control and tunability has been achieved in the output current. The research results indicate that the current and its direction between any two branches of T-shaped SnO2 nanostructures could be manipulated through the applied bias voltage of the third branch. Furthermore, it closely related with the crystal growth direction and junction between the different crystal planes. The characteristics of current splitter completely fit with Kirchhoff laws. The reviewers of this magazine held that “…this is the first paper trying to utilize the T-shape of the SnO2 nanowire for device purposes…”, and “this paper would be suggestive for the design of future nanodevices”.