Self-connected 3D architecture of microwires.

A defect or disclination line, prepared at a designed place in a nematic liquid crystal, is used as a template for realizing a microwire directly connected to the electrodes with an accuracy of a few microm. The line attracts and traps silica particles, until self-assembling a complete micronecklace. We then fix the colloids in the necklace by means of pyrrole electropolymerization. The process may be extended to connect many microwires simultaneously. This provides a new route for manufacturing automatic 3D connections, which could be important for electronic applications as Moore's law now seems to reach some limit in 2D.