Semiconductor Nanowire-Based FETs as Electronically Tunable Catalysts

摘要

Nanowires and nanotubes have shown remarkable electronic properties when configured either as simple current/voltage impedance elements or as field- effect transistors. Their very high surface-to-volume ratio makes them ideal sensors in situations where the gaseous species adsorbing on their surface donate or extract charge, in turn affecting the nanowire's conductivity. By reversing the process, nanowires configured as FETs potentially allow the surface chemistry, and hence the catalytic properties of the nanowire, to be tuned using the gate voltage as a kind of chemical-potential-setting parameter. An exciting goal is to use functionalized single-nanowire FETs or devices based on nanowire arrays as systems on whose surface not only the rate and extent of a catalytic reaction but also its selectivity can be varied entirely by varying the voltages applied to the device's terminals.