In-situ nanoelectrode growth inside FE-SEM for bio-chemical nanodevices

This paper reports the technique of metal nanoelectrode growth on the tip of carbon nanotube by field emission. The nanorobotic manipulation system inside a FE-SEM was used for this experiment. Depending on the diameter of the positive electrode, the density of electric field can be controlled for nanowire growth by field emission. By introducing the different precursors in chamber, different metal nanoeclectrodes can be grown. In this paper, the tungsten hexacarbonyl and cyclopentadienyl platinum were used as precursors to grow the tungsten and platinum nanowires. The tungsten nanowire growth following the electric field line was presented in this paper. The tungsten nanowire grew on the tip of the MWNT as negative electrode. On the other hand, the deposition of tungsten nanopattern was happened on the positive electrode. By decreasing the diameter of the positive electrode, the electric field line was concentrated to grow the nanowire on the tip of the positive electrode. The proposed method can be applied the fabrications of various applications to construct novel nano-scale devices.