Yao, JunYan, HaoLieber, Charles2020-04-282013-04-21Yao, Jun, Hao Yan, and Charles M. Lieber. 2013. “A Nanoscale Combing Technique for the Large-Scale Assembly of Highly Aligned Nanowires.” Nature Nanotechnology 8 (5) (April 21): 329–335. doi:10.1038/nnano.2013.55.1748-33871748-3395http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:42661843The controlled assembly of nanowires is a key challenge in the development of a range of bottom-up devices. Recent advances in the post-growth assembly of nanowires and carbon nanotubes have led to alignment ratios of 80–95% for a misalignment angle of ±5° and allowed various multiwire devices to be fabricated. However, these methods still create a significant number of crossing defects, which restricts the development of device arrays and circuits based on single nanowires/nanotubes. Here, we show that a nanocombing assembly technique, in which nanowires are anchored to defined areas of a surface and then drawn out over chemically distinct regions of the surface, can yield arrays with greater than 98.5% of the nanowires aligned to within ±1° of the combing direction. The arrays have a crossing defect density of ∼0.04 nanowires per µm and efficient end registration at the anchoring/combing interface. With this technique, arrays of single-nanowire devices are tiled over chips and shown to have reproducible electronic properties. We also show that nanocombing can be used for laterally deterministic assembly, to align ultralong (millimetre-scale) nanowires to within ±1° and to assemble suspended and crossed nanowire arrays.en-USElectrical and Electronic EngineeringGeneral Materials ScienceAtomic and Molecular Physics, and OpticsBioengineeringCondensed Matter PhysicsBiomedical EngineeringJournal Article2014-10-01J. Yao, H. Yan and C.M. Lieber2020-04-2810.1038/nnano.2013.55