Down to the Wire
04/02/08 — For years, nanoengineers have known how to create tiny wire transistors, sensors, light emitters and other useful components, but there's been no sure way to assemble them into integrated circuits because they're too small to manipulate. “You could look at things under a microscope, but you couldn't touch them,” explains EECS professor Ming Wu. But Wu and his research group have developed “optoelectronic tweezers” that can individually address wires and other nanoscale objects and convey them to precise locations. This has been the field's most challenging problem, and solving it paves the way for an entire class of devices from microdisplays to medical imaging tools.