| abstract |
FIELD OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates generally to nanotechnology and submicronanoelectronic devices that can be used in circuits, and in some cases to nanoscale wires and other nanostructures capable of encoding data. One aspect of the invention is to provide a nanoscale wire or other nanostructure having an electrically polarizable region, for example, the nanoscale wire may comprise a core and an electrically polarizable shell. In some cases, an electrically polarizable region can maintain its polarization state without an external electric field. Only all or part of the electrically polarizable region can be polarized, for example to encode one or more data bits. In one set of embodiments, the electrically polarizable region includes a functional oxide or ferroelectric oxide material, such as BaTiO 3 , lead titanate zirconate, or the like. In some embodiments, the nanowires (or other nanostructures) may further include isolation regions that separate other materials, such as electrically polarizable regions, from other regions of the nanoscale wire. For example, in nanoscale wires, one or more intermediate shells may separate the core from the electrically polarizable shell. |