Electrical properties of individual gold nanowires arrayed in a porous anodic alumina template

A procedure to fabricate a highly ordered electrodeposited nanowire array in a porous anodic alumina template with nanowires of uniform length and exposed tips for establishing low-resistance ohmic contacts has been demonstrated. In this work, contacts to An nanowire arrays have been investigated as a model system. The structural, topographical and electrical characteristics of the nanowire array have been studied using field emission scanning electron microscopy and conductive atomic force microscopy. Measurements showed that an electrical contact between the conducting AFM probe and the exposed Au nanowire tips was initiated only after a force of 14.4 +/- 2 nN was applied. The I-V characteristics were linear up to the maximum applied current density of 1.5 x 10(12) A/m(2), and the resistivity of the individual An nanowires in the template was estimated to be between 1.4 and 7 times the resistivity of large grained bulk Au. (C) 2007 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.