Self-assembling electrical connections based on the principle of minimum resistance

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Abstract
We study self-constructing and self-repairing electrical connections built by agglomeration of metallic particles between two electrodes. Our experiments show that self-assembling electrical connections grow by building a chain of particles between two electrodes immersed in a dielectric liquid. We find that the growth time for the self-assembling process is a linear function of the initial average spacing of metallic particles and a linear function of the distance between the electrodes. Furthermore, the experiments demonstrate the ability of the electrical connection to self-repair following small perturbations. We show that the agglomeration process occurs in such a way as to minimize the overall resistance of the system. We discuss possible future applications of this phenomenon for fabricating nanoscale circuits. © 1996 The American Physical Society.

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