In recent years, tremendous interest has been generated in the fabrication and characterization of nanoscale structures such as quantum dots and wires. For example, there is interest in the electronic, magnetic, mechanical, and chemical properties of materials with reduced dimensions. In the case of nanoscale semiconductors, quantum effects are expected to play an increasingly prominent role in the physics of nanostructures, and a new class of electronic and optoelectronic devices may be possible. In addition to new and interesting physics, the formation and characterization of nanoscale magnetic structures could result in higher-density storage capacity in hard disks and optical-recording media. Likewise, phonon confinement leads to a drastic reduction of thermal conductivity and can be used to improve the performance of thermoelectric devices.

In 1980, H. Sakaki predicted theoretically that quantum wires may have applications in high-performance transport devices, due to their sawtoothlike density of states (E1/2), where E is the electron energy. Since then, most quantum wires have been made by fabricating a gratinglike gate on top of a two-dimensional (2D) electron gas contained in a semiconductor heterojunction or in metal-oxide-semiconductor structures. By applying a negative gate voltage to the system, its structure can be changed from a 2D to a one-dimensional (1D) regime, where electron confinement is achieved by an electrostatic confining potential. It was not until recently that “physical” semiconductor quantum wires with the demonstrated 1D confinement by physical boundaries began to be fabricated.

Recent advances in the control of thin films and surfaces have brought an intriguing question within reach: Is it possible to tailor the electronic properties of solids by controlling them layer by layer or row by row? Customized molecules are commonplace in biochemistry. Can the same idea be brought to bear on solids and electronic materials? Electronic properties of semiconductor devices have been controlled by hetero-structures, quantum wells, and super-lattices. Magnetism as a cooperative phenomenon lends itself to manipulation in small structures, where neighbor atoms can be replaced systematically by species with stronger or weaker magnetism. In fact, a class of magnetic/nonmagnetic multilayers termed spin valves has recently been introduced into commercial read heads for magnetically stored data. The optimum thickness of their active region lies in the single-digit-nanometer regime.

The smallest nanostructures may be viewed as objects consisting only of interfaces with no bulk behind them. More typically, single-digit-nanometer dimensions are sufficient for realizing the benefits of structuring (e.g., operating a quantum-well device at room temperature). This regime is difficult to reach with lithography methods, particularly when macroscopic amounts are to be fabricated. Self-assembly becomes the method of choice.

A scaling-down of feature sizes into the nanometer range is a common trend in silicon and compound semiconductor advanced devices. That this trend will continue is clearly evidenced by the fact that the “roadmap” for the Si ultralarge-scale-integration circuit (USLI) industry targets production-level realization of a 70-nm minimum feature size for the year 2010. GaAs- and InP-based heterostructure devices such as high-electron-mobility transistors (HEMTs) and heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs) have made remarkable progress by miniaturization, realizing ultrahigh speeds approaching the THz range with ultralow power consumption. Due to progress in nanofabrication technology, feature sizes of scaled-down transistors are rapidly approaching the Fermi wavelength of electrons in semiconductors, even at the production level. This fact may raise some concerns about the operation of present-day devices based on semiclassical principles.

However, the progress of nanofabrication technology has opened up the exciting possibility of constructing novel quantum devices, based directly on quantum mechanics, by utilizing artificial structures such as quantum wells, wires, and dots. In these structures, new physical effects appear, such as the formation of new quantum states in single and coupled quantum structures, artificial miniband formation in superlattices, tunneling and resonant tunneling in single and multiple barriers, propagation of phase-coherent guided electron waves in quantum wires, conductance oscillations in small tunnel junctions due to single-electron tunneling, and so on. We expect that these effects will offer rich functionality in next-generation semiconductor quantum ULSIs based on artificial quantum structures, with feature sizes in the range of one to a few tens of nanometers. Beyond this, molecular-level ULSIs using exotic materials and various chemical and electrochemical processes other than the standard semiconductor ones may appear, butat present, they still seem to be too far in the future for realistic consideration for industrial applications.

Most microfabrication techniques employ masks to transfer the desired microstructure onto a wafer using ultraviolet light, x-rays, electrons, or ions for the projection of the structures. Generally, photoresist processing and etching follow to form the final structures. In all cases, the facilities necessary to perform these processes grow increasingly more complex as the feature size of the structures diminishes, and these processes face their practical or economic limits at dimensions of about 50 nm. Thus alternative approaches are under investigation, including different self-assembly techniques. They require no costly facilities and no masks with nanometer structures, and they promise high throughput, since the patterning is directly achieved by a physical or chemical process. Self-assembled monolayers of long-chain organic molecules are the most widely studied examples, where chemisorption and spontaneous self-ordering of the molecules are observed on appropriate substrates. Another interesting example is island-ordering, laterally or in a vertical direction, during epitaxial growth. The lattice-mismatched islands tend to nucleate preferentially on top of each other when separated by a thin spacer layer, due to the associated strain field. Another approach is the use of specific stressor layers on the surface to obtain alignment of buried precipitates along the stressor lines. However, the main challenges of all self-assembly techniques are precise control of the dimensions of the structures and reproducibility.

Semiconductor wires with nanometer widths have attracted much attention in recent years for their potential applications in mesoscopic research and nanodevices. Since the 1960s, Si whiskers grown from the vapor-liquid-solid (VLS) reaction have been extensively studied. In the VLS reaction, Au particles are generally used as the mediating solvent on a Si substrate since Au and Si form a molten alloy at a relatively low temperature. Si in the vapor phase diffuses into the liquid-alloy droplet and bonds to the solid Si at the liquid-solid interface, which results in the growth of Si whiskers. The diameter of the whisker is determined by the diameter of the liquid-alloy droplet at its tip. Si whiskers generally grow along ⟨111⟩ directions epitaxially on Si(111) substrates in the form of single crystals by the VLS reaction.

In different materials systems, however, a variety of whisker forms can be obtained. For example, GaP whiskers display rotational twins around their ⟨111⟩ growth axes, while GaAs whiskers grow in the form of the wurtzite structure.

Thus far, the synthesis of one-dimensional nanostructured materials on a large scale remains a challenge. In recent years, many efforts have been made to synthesize Si nanowires by employing different methods such as photolithography and etching techniques and scanning tunneling microscopy. One method of particular interest is a recently developed laser ablation of metal-containing semiconductor targets, by which bulk quantities of semiconductor nanowires can be readily obtained. Our recent studies show that oxides play a dominant role in the nucleation and growth of high-quality semiconductor nanowires in bulk quantities by laser ablation, thermal evaporation, or chemical vapor deposition. A new growth mechanism called oxide-assisted nanowire growth has therefore been established. The ability to synthesize large quantities of high-purity (no contamination), ultra-long (in millimeters), and uniform-sized semiconductor nanowires (a few nanometers to tens of nanometers in diameter) from this new technique offers exciting possibilities in fundamental and applied research.

Soon after the identification of carbon nanotubes, produced by arc-discharge techniques, the possibility of introducing metals into the inner core of the tubes was considered (Figure 1). This idea followed logically from the successful observation of fullerenes containing endohedral metals. The introduction of metals or metal carbides and oxides into multiwalled nanotubes [usually 2–70 nm outside diameter (OD), <60 microns in length] may significantly alter their conducting, electronic, and mechanical properties, arising from the internal framework within these structures. Early theoretical work predicted that all carbon open nanotubes could behave as “molecular straws.” In this context, Ajayan and lijima were the first to introduce Pb by heating the metal with open-ended nanotubes (sometimes in the presence of oxygen). Capillarity, wetting, and surface tension play an important role in the process; other elements such as Bi, Cs, S, and Se were also introduced into nanotubes in this way. Generally, the filling of open nanotubes by capillary action is confined to low surface-tension substances. Alternative methods of encapsulating other materials within nanotubes have now been developed, including chemical treatment, arc discharge, catalyzed hydrocarbon pyrolysis, and electrochemical techniques. In addition, carbon nanotubes can be used as reactive templates to generate novel metal carbide and nitride nanorods. These developments represent only the tip of the iceberg, because numerous noncarbon materials (e.g., Si, SiOx, SiC, MoS2, WS2, etc.) are able to form novel nanowires and fullerene-like morphologies. This review discusses methods for generating these fascinating structures and evaluates their possible applications in materials science and engineering.