A Yonsei University research team says it has developed a nanowire with the world's smallest width.

Led by Yonsei professor Yeom Han-woong, the team used metal silicide, a compound of metal and silicon, to produce a two-nanometer thick wire, which is one-25th of the measurement of existing metal wires.

Metal wires transfer electric signals to semiconductor devices, and narrow wires make semiconductors smaller with a bigger capacity.

The team said wires made of metal or other chemical compounds lose metallicity at narrowed widths, but that the new nanowire perfectly functions as an electric wire.

The discovery was reported in this month's Physical Review Letters of the American Physical Society.