Harvard College

Korea University

Thomas J Kempa

Charles M Lieber

Robert Day

Max Nathan Mankin

Ping Xie

Bozhi Tian

Ruixuan Gao

Hong-Gyu Park

Xiaojie Duan

Itzhaq Cohen-Karni

Quan Qing

Sun-Kyung Kim

The present invention generally relates to nanoscale wires, and to methods of producing nanoscale wires. In some aspects, the nanoscale wires are nanowires comprising a core which is continuous and a shell which may be continuous or discontinuous, and/or may have regions having different cross-sectional areas. In some embodiments, the shell regions are produced by passing the shell material (or a precursor thereof) over a core nanoscale wire under conditions in which Plateau-Raleigh crystal growth occurs, which can lead to non-homogenous deposition of the shell material on different regions of the core. The core and the shell each independently may comprise semiconductors, and/or non-semiconductor materials such as semiconductor oxides, metals, polymers, or the like. Other embodiments are generally directed to systems and methods of making or using such nanoscale wires, devices containing such nanoscale wires, or the like.

Controlled growth of nanoscale wires

The present invention generally relates to nanoscale wires, including anisotropic deposition in nanoscale wires. In one set of embodiments, material may be deposited on certain portions of a nanoscale wire, e.g., anisotropically. For example, material may be deposited on a first facet of a crystalline nanoscale wire but not on a second facet. In some cases, additional materials may be deposited thereon, and/or the portions of the nanoscale wire may be removed, e.g., to produce vacant regions within the nanoscale wire, which may contain gas or other species. Other embodiments of the invention may be directed to articles made thereby, devices containing such nanoscale wires, kits involving such nanoscale wires, or the like.

Anisotropic deposition in nanoscale wires

Kinked nanowires are used for measuring electrical potentials inside simple cells. An improved intracellular entrance is achieved by modifying the kinked nanowires with phospholipids.

Bent nanowires and related probing of species

Growing community of inventors

Somerville, MA, United States of America

Thomas J Kempa