As components of electronic devices get ever smaller, wires connecting those components must also shrink in proportion. At the micron to nanometer scale, where devices are now being built, the wave nature of matter is becoming critical. This may be an advantage or it could be a problem. Making and understanding nanowires is certainly a challenge. Real nanowires have imperfections. The image Nanowire grew out of a study of electron flow in a wire riddled with random imperfections. It shows electrons injected at one point contact, the “sun”, flowing out from there to all regions of the wire. The disturbance of the electron tracks by the imperfections is shown in their somewhat unruly paths. The quantum aspect of the electrons is shown in color: we can follow the wave nature of the electrons by assigning yellow to the crest of the wave, blue to a trough, continuously around the color circle. The creative process leading to Naonwire is typical of my artwork: a synthesis of research and artistic creation, each one enhancing the other. Experiments conducted by M. Topinka, B. LeRoy and B. Westervelt measuring electron transport in semiconductor microstructures led to scientific illustrations of electrons riding over bumpy landscape potentials. Experimentation with various methods of recording individual electron tracks (overwrite, transparency, color combination) led to a variety of effects and expanded thee horizon of the medium. The resulting Transport series is the first of large format high resolution electron flow images using branched flow physics. These images revealed the caustics formed when electrons flow from a particular point over a hilly landscape..
