An efficient methodology for measurement of the average electrical properties of single one-dimensional NiO nanorods

We utilized a metal tantalum (Ta) ball-probe to measure the electrical properties of vertical-aligned one-dimensional (1D) nickel-oxide (NiO) nanorods. The 1D NiO nanorods (on average similar to 105 nm wide and similar to 700 nm long) are synthesized using the hot-filament metal-oxide vapor deposition (HFMOVD) technique, and they are cubic phased and have a wide bandgap of 3.68 eV. When the 1D NiO nanorods are arranged in a large-area array in ohmic-contact with the Ta ball-probe, they acted as many parallel resistors. By means of a rigorous calculation, we can easily acquire the average resistance R-NR and resistivity rho(NR) of a single NiO nanorod, which were approximately 3.1 x 10(13) Omega and 4.9 x 10(7) .Omega.cm, respectively.