What Wonderful Things Small (Nano) Wires Can Do For You: From High-Density Memories to Transparent Electronics

A nanowire is a one-dimensional structure with “diameter” of tens of nanometers and length up to tens of micrometers. In this talk, I will discuss my group’s research on a broad range of devices based on both nano-fabricated nanowires (using the so-called top-down approach) and chemically-grown nanowires (so-called bottom-up approach). Examples include non-volatile memories configured in the crossbar structure that offer excellent performance metrics and scaling potential beyond that of flash; transparent and flexible electronics based on nanowire thin-film devices that operate in the 100MHz range; nanowire chemical sensors with sub-ppm sensitivity; and electromechanical resonators that offer high-Q and in-situ frequency tunability.
Wei Lu received the B.S. degree in physics from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 1996, and the M.A. and Ph.D. in physics from Rice University, Houston, TX, in 1999 and 2003, respectively. From 2003 to 2005, he was a postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. In 2005, he joined the faculty of the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department at the University of Michigan as an assistant professor. His research interests lie in the application and fundamental understanding of nanostructures and nanodevices, including high-density crossbar memory and logic devices, semiconductor nanowire-based transistors and sensors, flexible and transparent thin-film electronics, and nano-electromechanical systems. He has published over 30 journal and conference papers that have been cited over 1000 times to date. He is an active reviewer for over 20 scientific journals, a member of the IEEE, APS, MRS, a board member of the AVS Michigan Chapter, and on the editorial board of Micro and Nanosystems Journal. He is a recipient of the Wilson Award in 2003.