Precise Alignment of Single Nanowires and Fabrication of Nanoelectromechanical Switch and Other Test Structures

The integration of nanowires and nanotubes into electrical test structures to investigate their nanoelectronic transport properties is a significant challenge. Here, we present a single nanowire manipulation system to precisely maneuver and align individual nanowires. We show that a single nanowire can be picked up and transferred to a predefined location by electrostatic force. Compatible fabrication processes have been developed to simultaneously pattern multiple aligned nanowires by using one level of photolithography. In addition, we have fabricated and characterized representative devices and test structures including nanoelectromechanical switches with large on/off current ratios, bottom-gated silicon nanowire field-effect transistors, and both transfer-length-method and Kelvin test structures