'Focused' assembly of V₂O₅ nanowire masks for the fabrication of metallic nanowire sensors

We present a method to overcome the resolution limit of the conventional directed-assembly strategy and to mass-produce metallic nanowire-based devices. In this method, 'microscale' self-assembled monolayer patterns with 'gradient' surface molecular density 'focused' the assembly of vanadium oxide nanowires onto the 'nanoscale' regions on a metallic thin film. Then, the assembled nanowires were utilized as a shadow mask to generate metallic nanowire-based devices. As a proof of concept, we successfully demonstrate the fabrication of metallic nanowire-based highly-selective sensors to detect thiol molecular solution or hydrogen gas under ambient conditions. This approach provides us with an easy, but efficient, means to generate metallic nanowire-based devices over a large surface area for various practical applications such as chemical sensors and nanoscale interconnectors.