Dr Hannah Joyce is College Lecturer in Engineering at St John’s, and University Lecturer in Electronic Devices and Materials. In this short introduction to one aspect of her work, she discusses what nanowires are, how they are made, and in particular their importance as semiconductors. Measuring between 10 and 100 nanometres across – a tiny fraction of a human hair – these remarkable structures offer huge promise for the development of all sorts of devices, including photodetectors, lasers and solar cells. Fabricating them and controlling their properties requires extensive research and precision techniques, however, and developing commercially viable processes that will make nanowires commonplace in a range of technologies remains a holy grail aspiration for scientists and engineers working in this field.
