Answers on the surface

physicists have discovered what it takes to make metal 'nanowires' that last a long time. This is particularly important to the electronics industry, which hopes to use tiny wires in electronic devices in the next 10 to 15 years.

Although researchers in Japan, the Netherlands, Spain, Brazil and the United States have had some success at making nanowires, extremely small filaments that transport electrons, the wires don't last long except at low temperatures.

What researchers need are robust nanowires that will take repeated use without failing at room temperature and higher.

UA post-doctoral associate Jerome Buerki and physics Professors Charles Stafford and Daniel Stein developed a theory that explains why nanowires thin away to nothing at non-zero temperatures. Energy fluctuations in a nanowire at higher temperatures create a collective motion, or "soliton," among atoms in the wire. As each of these kink-like structures propagates from one end of the wire to the other, the wire thins.