Abstract
Making contacts to nanostructures with atomic precision is an important process in the bottom-up fabrication and characterization of electronic nanodevices. Existing contacting techniques use top-down lithography and chemical etching, but lack atomic precision and introduce the possibility of contamination. Here, we report that a field-induced emission process can be used to make local contacts onto individual nanowires and nanotubes with atomic spatial precision. The gold nano-islands are deposited onto nanostructures precisely by using a scanning tunneling microscope tip, which provides a clean and controllable method to ensure both electrically conductive and mechanically reliable contacts. To demonstrate the wide applicability of the technique, nano-contacts are fabricated on silicide atomic wires, carbon nanotubes, and copper nanowires. The electrical transport measurements are performed in situ by utilizing the nanocontacts to bridge the nanostructures to the transport probes.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 103103 |
Journal | Applied Physics Letters |
Volume | 100 |
Issue number | 10 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Mar 5 2012 |
Funding
This research was conducted at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, which is sponsored at Oak Ridge National Laboratory by the Division of Scientific User Facilities, U.S. Department of Energy. S.H. and Z.B. acknowledge support by the Center for Advanced Molecular Photovoltaics, Award KUS-C1-015-21, made by King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). S.H. acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship.
Funders | Funder number |
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Center for Advanced Molecular Photovoltaics | KUS-C1-015-21 |
Division of Scientific User Facilities | |
National Science Foundation | |
U.S. Department of Energy | |
Oak Ridge National Laboratory | |
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology |