Building Structures Atom by Atom via Electron Beam Manipulation

Ondrej Dyck, Songkil Kim, Elisa Jimenez-Izal, Anastassia N. Alexandrova, Sergei V. Kalinin, Stephen Jesse

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

90 Scopus citations

Abstract

Building materials from the atom up is the pinnacle of materials fabrication. Until recently the only platform that offered single-atom manipulation was scanning tunneling microscopy. Here controlled manipulation and assembly of a few atom structures are demonstrated by bringing together single atoms using a scanning transmission electron microscope. An atomically focused electron beam is used to introduce Si substitutional defects and defect clusters in graphene with spatial control of a few nanometers and enable controlled motion of Si atoms. The Si substitutional defects are then further manipulated to form dimers, trimers, and more complex structures. The dynamics of a beam-induced atomic-scale chemical process is captured in a time-series of images at atomic resolution. These studies suggest that control of the e-beam-induced local processes offers the next step toward atom-by-atom nanofabrication, providing an enabling tool for the study of atomic-scale chemistry in 2D materials and fabrication of predefined structures and defects with atomic specificity.

Original languageEnglish
Article number1801771
JournalSmall
Volume14
Issue number38
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 20 2018

Funding

The authors would like to thank Dr. Ivan Vlassiouk for provision of the graphene samples and Dr. Francois Amet for assistance with the argon– oxygen cleaning procedure. Research was performed at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, which is a US Department of Energy Office of Science User facility. Experimental work 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 (O.D., S.K., S.V.K., S.J.). The authors would like to thank Dr. Ivan Vlassiouk for provision of the graphene samples and Dr. Francois Amet for assistance with the argon–oxygen cleaning procedure. Research was performed at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, which is a US Department of Energy Office of Science User facility. Experimental work 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 (O.D., S.K., S.V.K., S.J.).

Keywords

  • atomic control
  • electron beam
  • graphene
  • scanning transmission electron microscope
  • silicon dimer

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