Katja Schneider, Leon Heinen, Matthias Zalfen
One of the most cutting-edge topics in physics is the fabrication of nanowires. On the one hand nanowires promise a diverse range of applications and on the other hand they are of interest for fundamental research as a model of a one dimensional conductor. The goal of our "Jugend forscht"-project is the fabrication of nanowires at our school and their electrical characterization. In order to achieve this, we have followed three different approaches. We have already succeeded in growing zinc oxide nanowires in a microwave, however, these nanowires were too short to be contacted electrically. Therefore we tried to fabricate longer nanowires using the vapor-liquid-solid (VLS) method. We built a tube furnace, which allows us to reach the neccessary temperatures of about 1000 °C. However, the filament was damaged during the first attempt and the quartz glass tube was damaged during the second attempt. Until the delivery of a new quartz tube, we fabricated nanowires using electrospinning. Using this method we were able to fabricate very long zinc oxide nanowires which we successfully contacted using indium. Using the contacted ZnO-nanowires, we were able to build a sensitive sensor for UV, ozone and ammonia.
