Nanoring

Nanorings are a relatively recent development within the realm of nanoscience; the first peer-reviewed journal article mentioning these nanostructures came from researchers at the Institute of Physics and Center for Condensed Matter Physics in Beijing who synthesized nanorings made of gallium nitride in 2001.

These are nanomaterials in which one of the three physical dimensions in a single unit of the material is on a length scale greater than the nanoscale.

One-dimensional nanostructures have a variety of potential uses and applications but due to the dimensions of their extended crystal structures, they cannot be grown on discrete crystal growth sites and thus, cannot be synthesized on a substrate with any crystallographic predictability.

It has now been demonstrated that ZnO nanorings made from the spontaneous folding of a single nanobelt crystal can be extensively mechanically manipulated without breaking or fracturing, giving them a unique mechanical advantage over other classes of ZnO nanostructures.

If these criteria are met, these particles may naturally self-assemble into ring structures such that Coulomb repulsion forces are minimized within the resulting crystal.