Jin Gyu Park et al 2007 Nanotechnology 18 405306 doi:10.1088/0957-4484/18/40/405306
Jin Gyu Park, Chuck Zhang, Richard Liang and Ben Wang
Show affiliationsSub-100 nm holes were made on a highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) surface using a metal-coated atomic force microscope (AFM) tip and carbon nanotube. HOPG was used as a substrate (work piece) and a metal-coated (10 nm Cr/30 nm Au) Si AFM tip served as the other electrode. A negative voltage pulse was applied to the AFM tip to fabricate holes as small as 10 nm in diameter on the HOPG surface with a depth of 0.34 nm, which corresponds to a single layer of graphene. We also explored an individual multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWNT) attached to the AFM tip for nanoscale machining. Unlike the pyramidal shape of the AFM tip, the high aspect ratio of a carbon nanotube can make it possible to form deeper holes at even smaller surface diameter. The hole-formation mechanism is related to the chemical reaction of graphite with adsorbed water and tunneling electrons from the tip to substrate.
81.16.-c Methods of nanofabrication and processing
82.65.+r Surface and interface chemistry; heterogeneous catalysis at surfaces
73.25.+i Surface conductivity and carrier phenomena
68.35.B- Structure of clean surfaces (and surface reconstruction)
Surfaces, interfaces and thin films
Condensed matter: structural, mechanical & thermal
Issue 40 (10 October 2007)
Received 10 July 2007, in final form 15 August 2007
Published 17 September 2007
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