Electron-Beam Sculpting with 2-nm Resolution |
 |
Highly-focused, high-energy electron beam can be used to etch holes and to modify nanowires in various ways. The picture shows a nanowires, about 15 nm in diameter, with two nanoholes, each being about 2.5 nm in diameter. Making such small holes in metallic wires constitutes a significant achievement in nanofabrication. The method was perfected by Mikas Remeika, while working in Bezryadin laboratory. The images are courtesy M. Remeika and A. Bezryadin (Physics/UIUC). |
| The top picture shows a nanowire with two e-beam-etched holes. Pictures below illustrate the steps of nanofabrication. The wire is fabricated using molecular templating, as described in [1], however a transparent SiN membrane is used. The utilization of a membrane allows one to study the sample in a transmission electron microscope (TEM). Using a field emission electron source and high quality electron optics, the TEM beam can be focused to a spot of radius less than 1 nm. The beam of electrons is very powerful since electrons are accelerate by a voltage of 200000 Volts. Under these conditions the wire material evaporate and/or melts at the e-beam focus. This effect allows various patterns to be formed with about 2 nanometer resolution[2].
Microscope used: JEOL 2010F-FEG.
The scale bar in the pictures is 10nm .
[1] Bezryadin, A.; Lau, C. N.; Tinkham, M. Nature. 2000, v.404, p.971.
[2] Remeika, M.; Bezryadin, A. Nanotechnology, 2004, v.16, p.1172.
|
| See also images: |
 |
Step 1 |  |
Step 2 |  |
Step 3 |
 |
Step 4 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
