High quality, single-crystal silicon nanowires were successfully grown from silicon wafers with a nickel catalyst by utilizing a solid-liquid-solid (SLS) mechanism. The nanowires were composed of a crystalline silicon core with an average diameter of 10 nm and a thick outer oxide layer of between 20 and 30 nm at a growth temperature of 1000 °C. When utilizing the SLS growth mechanism, the diameter of the silicon nanowire is dependent solely upon the growth temperature, and has no relation to either the size or the shape of the catalyst. The characteristics of the silicon nanowires are highly dependent upon the properties of the silicon substrate, such as the crystal phase of silicon itself, as well as the doping type. The possibility of doping of silicon nanowires grown via the SLS mechanism without any external dopant source was demonstrated by measuring the electrical properties of a silicon nanowire field effect transistor.

Contacts of carbon nanotubes to the prefabricated metal electrodes are improved by field evaporation of metals from a tip of an atomic force microscope such as soldering and/or the thermal treatment. The resultant contact resistance is as good as ∼100kΩ with nanoscale Au dots on Au electrodes, similar to the result of thermal treatment of the device. The contact resistance is found to be lower with Au dots than with Ni or Al dots. This method can be applied to local soldering of nanowires and nanotubes to the metal electrodes.