O Sardan et al 2008 Nanotechnology 19 495503 doi:10.1088/0957-4484/19/49/495503
O Sardan1, V Eichhorn2, D H Petersen1, S Fatikow2, O Sigmund3 and P Bøggild1
Show affiliationsNanorobotic handling of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) using microgrippers is one of the most promising approaches for the rapid characterization of the CNTs and also for the assembly of prototypic nanotube-based devices. In this paper, we present pick-and-place nanomanipulation of multi-walled CNTs in a rapid and a reproducible manner. We placed CNTs on copper TEM grids for structural analysis and on AFM probes for the assembly of AFM super-tips. We used electrothermally actuated polysilicon microgrippers designed using topology optimization in the experiments. The microgrippers are able to open as well as close. Topology optimization leads to a 10–100 times improvement of the gripping force compared to conventional designs of similar size. Furthermore, we improved our nanorobotic system to offer more degrees of freedom. TEM investigation of the CNTs shows that the multi-walled tubes are coated with an amorphous carbon layer, which is locally removed at the contact points with the microgripper. The assembled AFM super-tips are used for AFM measurements of microstructures with high aspect ratios.
85.85.+j Micro- and nano-electromechanical systems (MEMS/NEMS) and devices
Issue 49 (10 December 2008)
Received 8 October 2008, in final form 20 October 2008
Published 18 November 2008
O Sardan et al 2008 Nanotechnology 19 495503
C Bottrill et al 2010 Environ. Res. Lett. 5 014019
S H Chen et al 1994 J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 6 10855
T. Aste et al 2007 EPL 79 24003
Mingzhen Tang et al 2007 Nanotechnology 18 485304
J Roth 1993 J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 26 1455
E Narevicius et al 2007 New J. Phys. 9 358
R Scharein et al 2009 J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 42 475006
P. Hartigan et al. 2009 ApJ 705 1073
2001 J. Radiol. Prot. 21 313