Materials scientists in France said on April 22 they had made highly-conductive plastic wires on the nano-scale, an invention with potential for mobile devices, computing and solar energy.
Just a few billionths of a metre across, the fibres are light, inexpensive, flexible and easy to handle, in contrast to carbon nano-tubes, the team said in the journal Nature Chemistry.
The wires are derivatives of man-made molecules called tri-aryl-amines that have been used for decades in photocopiers. In their study, the scientists say they were surprised to find that the wires "self-assemble" spontaneously in response to a flash of light, and are nearly as conductive as copper.
In a bench-test experiment, the tiny materials formed a bridge between two electrodes that were spaced 100 nanometres (100 billionths of a metre) apart.
"The researchers now hope to demonstrate that their fibres can be used industrially in miniaturised electronic devices such as flexible screens, solar cells, transistors (and) printed nano-circuits," the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) said in a press release.
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