ABSTRACT
Nanowires are an important form of nanostructure evolving as promising components for the rapidly growing semiconductor industry. Nanowires are nanoscale components that can be metallic, semiconducting, insulating, and superconducting. They provide unique scaling down opportunities for nano-electro-mechanical systems (NEMS) devices, and semiconductor devices. This chapter provides a detailed review of the growing need for nanowires, especially for the smaller electronic components and integrated circuits, thereby fueling the semiconductor industry with NEMS components. The synthesis of nanowires is calling for newer approaches to design, especially for the semiconductor industry. Nanowires can be synthesized using various techniques, especially from semiconductors or metals. Nanowires usually have a high aspect ratio, viz., larger length, and a smaller diameter. Nanowires are synthesized from conducting metals like copper, cobalt, gold, and semi-conducting elements like silicon, germanium, etc. These wires are synthesized using bottom-up as well as top-down approaches, based on the requirements of the applications. The interests of researchers across the globe, especially for thermos-electrical applications, biotechnology, photovoltaics, and medical components have triggered the innovations in the domain of nanowires. Hence there is a need for a review of the future perspectives of nanowires, and this chapter provides an overview of the nanowires, their synthesis, characteristics, applications, and future scope.
