Bottom-Up Nanofabrication

Bottom-up nanofabrication is the opposite of top-down nanofabrication, where instead of starting with a bar of gold and cutting the bar down to the nanoscale. The bottom-up approach is starting with atoms or molecules and building them up to nanostructures. There are two approaches to bottom-up nanofabrication:

1. Nanotubes 2. Quantum Dots

Characteristics of Nanotubes

Structure: Long, cylindrical tubes of carbon formed by a catalytic growth process. Behavior: Can behave like conductive metal wire or like a semiconductor. If you would like more information on nanotubes please click here. (You will be transferred to another page within my website.)

Characteristics of Quantum Dots

General: Crystals containing only a few hundred atoms. Electrons are confined to widely separated energy levels, dot emits one wavelength of light when excited. Size of the dot determines electronic, magnetic, and optical properties. Used as biological markers (illuminating sample with ultraviolet light crystals will fluoresce at a specific wavelength).