SELF-ASSEMBLING ELECTRICAL CONNECTIONS BASED ON THE PRINCIPLE OF MINIMUM RESISTANCE

We study self-constructing and self-repairing electrical connections b uilt by agglomeration of metallic particles between two electrodes. Ou r experiments show that self-assembling electrical connections grow by building a chain of particles between two electrodes immersed in a di electric liquid. We find that the growth time for the self-assembling process is a linear function of the initial average spacing of metalli c particles and a linear function of the distance between the electrod es. Furthermore, the experiments demonstrate the ability of the electr ical 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 applicat ions of this phenomenon for fabricating nanoscale circuits.