#nanoWIRES news
Nanomanipulation of a single silicon nanowire by nanoprobe
24-01-2021
The thin wire you can hardly see at the probe tip is 100 nanometers in diameter and few micrometers in length. It will be placed onto two small platforms suspended onto silicon nitride tethered wires.
On the platforms and on the tethered wires, platinum connections form a heater and a thermometer capable to increase the temperature at one side of the silicon nanowire and measuring the temperature at the opposite extreme.
In this way the thermal conductivity of the nanowires can be measured. Porous silicon nanowires are fabricated by self-assembling lithography and Metal Assisted Chemical Etching (link alla pagina di fabbricazione dei fili).
They can have a very low thermal conductivity, lower than glass and close to the air.
Aim of the Workpackage 4 of the EMPIR Project 19ENG05 Nanowires is to study standards for thermal Scanning Probe Microscopy (link alla pagina delle misure SPM dei nanofili) and to exploit research on thermo-electrical materials.
These materials have low thermal conductivity and good electrical conductivity at the same time, and in nature similar behaviours are quite rare. Thermo-electrical materials can be useful for better thermal sensors, for thermal rectification and distributed energy harvesting.