Nanostructures: Fabrication and Applications

Conventional integrated circuits now contain linewidths approaching one micron, but on a laboratory scale, patterns and complete electronic devices can be made with minimum features as as small as tens of nanometers. Quantum transport and single electron effects become important here, giving us new tools for studying the behavior of electrons in metals and semiconductors. In addition, conventional devices and circuits reach fundamental limits at these dimensions, and completely different approaches to electronics must be explored. In this paper, we consider the processes of making nanostructures, some of the new physics that occurs in small devices, and a new class of circuits that may overcome some of the limitations of existing electronics.