Suneel Kodambaka, co-author of the study and professor of materials science and engineering at UCLA, pointed out that because of their miniscule size, nanowire technology is able to be used in virtually any device.
Alongside scientists from Purdue University and IBM, Mr Kodambaka and his team have developed silicon-germanium semiconducting nanowires that could be used in a future transistor product.
He added: "The Jet Propulsion Laboratory uses bulk chunks of silicon-germanium to power their satellites and now there is a lot of interest in using a similar technology in automobiles."
The report appeared in the November 27th issue of Science and could speed up the process of making smaller and faster electronic devices according to its authors.
This week, a scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, demonstrated what he claims to be the smallest semiconductor laser in the world, built with the aid of nanowire technology.
