Atomic-Level Sculpting of Crystalline Oxides: Toward Bulk Nanofabrication with Single Atomic Plane Precision

Stephen Jesse, Qian He, Andrew R. Lupini, Donovan N. Leonard, Mark P. Oxley, Oleg Ovchinnikov, Raymond R. Unocic, Alexander Tselev, Miguel Fuentes-Cabrera, Bobby G. Sumpter, Stephen J. Pennycook, Sergei V. Kalinin, Albina Y. Borisevich

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

65 Scopus citations

Abstract

The atomic-level sculpting of 3D crystalline oxide nanostructures from metastable amorphous films in a scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM) is demonstrated. Strontium titanate nanostructures grow epitaxially from the crystalline substrate following the beam path. This method can be used for fabricating crystalline structures as small as 1-2 nm and the process can be observed in situ with atomic resolution. The fabrication of arbitrary shape structures via control of the position and scan speed of the electron beam is further demonstrated. Combined with broad availability of the atomic resolved electron microscopy platforms, these observations suggest the feasibility of large scale implementation of bulk atomic-level fabrication as a new enabling tool of nanoscience and technology, providing a bottom-up, atomic-level complement to 3D printing. An aberration-corrected e-beam in a scanning transmission electron microscope can be used to crystallize amorphous complex oxides with atomic plane precision. Using this control system, epitaxial growth of SrTiO3 is achieved to pattern text onto a 90 × 25 nm area.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)5895-5900
Number of pages6
JournalSmall
Volume11
Issue number44
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 25 2015

Funding

The research was sponsored by the by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences, Materials Sciences and Engineering Division (Q.H., A.R.L., D.N.L., M.P.O., S.J.P. and A.Y.B.). This research was supported in part by the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences which was sponsored at Oak Ridge National Laboratory by the Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences, U.S. Department of Energy (R.R.U., A.T., M.F.‐C., B.G.S. and S.V.K.). S.J. and O.O. was supported by the Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, managed by UT‐Battelle, LLC, for the U.S. Department of Energy. Calculations made use of resources at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which was supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE‐AC05‐00OR22725.

Keywords

  • atomic-level sculpting
  • complex oxides
  • electron beam
  • epitaxy
  • microscopy
  • patterning

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