Electrical transport through monatomic titania chains

A crystalline titanosilicate material, Engelhard titanosilicate-4 (ETS-4), contains monatomic (i.e., one-atom-thick) semiconductor center dot Ti-O-Ti-O-Ti center dot (titania) chains in its framework, which are hypothesized to be "intrinsic" quantum wires. Monolithic ETS-4 crystals were individually embedded between gold electrodes using a photolithography based fabrication methodology, forming a device architecture in microcircuit configuration. Electrical transport measurements were performed, and current-voltage characteristics of the monatomic titania chains in ETS-4 were investigated. A non-Ohmic behavior with higher conductivities at higher bias voltages was observed. (c) 2007 American Institute of Physics.