Silver News

Silver Wires 'Million Times Thinner Than a Penny' Produced: Could Make Computers Smaller, Lighter


The Nano Chemistry Group, in Dublin, Ireland, has produced silver wires a million times thinner than a U.S. penny. This development could lead to smaller, lighter microchips and a dramatic drop in size and weight of devices that rely on these chips such as laptop computers and personal digital assistants.

The technology revolves around forcing extremely tiny particles known as nanoparticles to form themselves into the shape of wires. The silver particles themselves are shaped liked eggs and an electrical charge forces them to line up neatly in rows until they form a wire. "If you prepare these (nanoparticles) in a special way and select out particles of a particular size and shape, you can put them in solution, evaporate off the liquid and they will self-organize into thin wires," as research team leader Donald Fitzmaurice was quoted in the international journal, Advanced Materials. The next step for researchers is to integrate these tiny wires into microchips where they will connect various components.

Silver News - August/September 1998