Electron Beam Irradiation Induced Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes Fusioninside SEM

This paper reported a method of multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) fusion inside a scanning electron microscope (SEM).A CNT was picked up by nanorobotics manipulator system which was constructed in SEM with 21 DOFs and 1 nm resolution. TheCNT was picked up and placed on two manipulators. The tensile force was 140 nN when the CNT was pulled into two parts. Then,two parts of the CNT were connected to each other by two manipulators. The adhered force between two parts was measured to beabout 20 nN. When the two parts of CNT were connected again, the contact area was fused by focused electron beam irradiation for3 minutes. The tensile force of the junction was measured to be about 100 nN. However, after fusion, the tensile force was five timeslarger than the tensile force connected only by van der Waals force. This force was 70 percent of the tensile force before pulling outof CNTs. The results revealed that the electron beam irradiation was a promising method for CNT fusion. We hope this technologywill be applied to nanoelectronics in the near future.