Static and dynamic mechanical deflections were electrically induced in cantilevered, multiwalled carbon nanotubes in a transmission electron microscope. The nanotubes were resonantly excited at the fundamental frequency and higher harmonics as revealed by their deflected contours, which correspond closely to those determined for cantilevered elastic beams. The elastic bending modulus as a function of diameter was found to decrease sharply (from about 1 to 0.1 terapascals) with increasing diameter (from 8 to 40 nanometers), which indicates a crossover from a uniform elastic mode to an elastic mode that involves wavelike distortions in the nanotube. The quality factors of the resonances are on the order of 500. The methods developed here have been applied to a nanobalance for nanoscopic particles and also to a Kelvin probe based on nanotubes.

New models of fluid transport are expected to emerge from the confinement of liquids at the nanoscale, with potential applications in ultrafiltration, desalination and energy conversion. Nevertheless, advancing our fundamental understanding of fluid transport on the smallest scales requires mass and ion dynamics to be ultimately characterized across an individual channel to avoid averaging over many pores. A major challenge for nanofluidics thus lies in building distinct and well-controlled nanochannels, amenable to the systematic exploration of their properties. Here we describe the fabrication and use of a hierarchical nanofluidic device made of a boron nitride nanotube that pierces an ultrathin membrane and connects two fluid reservoirs. Such a transmembrane geometry allows the detailed study of fluidic transport through a single nanotube under diverse forces, including electric fields, pressure drops and chemical gradients. Using this device, we discover very large, osmotically induced electric currents generated by salinity gradients, exceeding by two orders of magnitude their pressure-driven counterpart. We show that this result originates in the anomalously high surface charge carried by the nanotube's internal surface in water at large pH, which we independently quantify in conductance measurements. The nano-assembly route using nanostructures as building blocks opens the way to studying fluid, ionic and molecule transport on the nanoscale, and may lead to biomimetic functionalities. Our results furthermore suggest that boron nitride nanotubes could be used as membranes for osmotic power harvesting under salinity gradients.

This is not the result of an increase of V 0 (Fig. 3A) shifting only slightly from V 0 Ϸ 3 V at 320 K to V 0 Ϸ -2.5 V at 144 K. 19. It was assumed that V 0 , which is read directly from the transfer characteristics, can be taken as a rough estimate for V FB , that is, n ind S Ϸ C i /e(V g -V 0 ).

A single Nitrogen Vacancy (NV) center hosted in a diamond nanocrystal is positioned at the extremity of a SiC nanowire. This novel hybrid system couples the degrees of freedom of two radically different systems, i.e. a nanomechanical oscillator and a single quantum object. The dynamics of the nano-resonator is probed through time resolved nanocrystal fluorescence and photon correlation measurements, conveying the influence of a mechanical degree of freedom given to a non-classical photon emitter. Moreover, by immersing the system in a strong magnetic field gradient, we induce a magnetic coupling between the nanomechanical oscillator and the NV electronic spin, providing nanomotion readout through a single electronic spin. Spin-dependent forces inherent to this coupling scheme are essential in a variety of active cooling and entanglement protocols used in atomic physics, and should now be within the reach of nanomechanical hybrid systems.Owing to recent developments in cavity opto-and electro-mechanics [1-3], it is now realistic to envision the observation of macroscopic mechanical oscillators cooled by active or traditional cryogenic techniques close to their ground state of motion. This conceptually elegant accomplishment would give access to a vast playground for physicists if the resonator wavefunction could be coherently manipulated such as to create, maintain and probe Fock or other non-classical states. It would provide a remarkable opportunity to extend the pioneering experiments with trapped ions [4] to encompass macroscopic objects. However, standard continuous measurements techniques used to actively cool and probe the resonator [5], when utilized to manipulate its quantum state, tend to blur its non-classical nature. An attractive alternative consists in interfacing the mechanical degrees of freedom with a single quantum object such as a 2-level system whose quantum state can be externally controlled [6][7][8][9][10][11]. Successful realization of this type of coupling between a nanomechanical oscillator in the quantum regime and a phase qubit was recently reported [12] and motivates the development of similar hybrid quantum systems presenting extended coherence times at room temperature and compatible with continuous measurement approaches.Here we report a first step in this direction by coupling a nanomechanical oscillator to a single negatively-charged Nitrogen Vacancy (NV) defect hosted in a diamond nanocrystal attached to its extremity (fig 1a). In that context, the NV defect appears as an attractive quantum system, both for its optical and electronic spin properties. Indeed, perfect photostability at room temperature makes the NV defect a robust and practical single-photon source [13,14]. Moreover, the NV defect ground state is a spin triplet (fig 1b) which can be initialized and read-out by optical means, and manipulated by resonant microwave excitation with an unprecedented coherence time for a solid-state system under ambient conditions [15,16]. Such properties are at the heart of diamond-base...

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Multiwalled carbon nanotubes are shown to be ballistic conductors at room temperature, with mean free paths of the order of tens of microns. The measurements are performed both in air and in high vacuum in the transmission electron microscope on nanotubes that protrude from unprocessed arc-produced nanotube containing fibers which contact with a liquid metal surface. These experiments follow and extend the original experiments by Frank et al (Science, 280 1744 1998) that demonstrated for the first time the large current carrying capability, very low intrinsic resistivities, and evidence for quantized conductance. This indicated 1D transport, that only the surface layer contributes to the transport, and ballistic conduction at room temperature. Here we follow up on the original experiment including in-situ electron microscopy experiments and a detailed analysis of the length dependence of the resistance. The per unit length resistance ρ < 100 Ω/µm, indicating free paths l > 65 µm, unambiguously demonstrate ballistic conduction at room temperature up to macroscopic distances. The nanotube-metal contact resistances are in the range 0.1-1 kΩµm. Contact scattering can explain why the measured conductances are about half the expected theoretical value of 2 G 0 . For V>0.1V the conductance rises linearly (dG/dV~0.3 G 0 /V) reflecting the linear increase in the density-of-states in a metallic nanotube above the energy gap. Increased resistances (ρ =2-10 kΩ/µm) and anomalous I-V dependences result from impurities and surfactants on the tubes. Evidence is presented that ballistic transport occurs in undoped and undamaged tubes for which the top layer is metallic and the next layer is semiconducting. The diffusive properties of lithographically contacted multiwalled nanotubes most likely result from purification and other processing steps that damage and dope the nanotubes thereby making them structurally and electronically different than the pristine nanotubes investigated here.

We compare the main feature of the measured Raman scattering spectra from single layer graphene with a bilayer in which the two layers are arbitrarily misoriented. The profiles of the 2D bands are very similar having only one component, contrary to the four found for commensurate Bernal bilayers. These results agree with recent theoretical calculations and point to the similarity of the electronic structures of single layer graphene and misoriented bilayer graphene. Another new aspect is that the dependance of the 2D frequency on the laser excitation energy is different in these two latter systems.

Miniaturization of force probes into nanomechanical oscillators enables ultrasensitive investigations of forces on dimensions smaller than their characteristic length scale. Meanwhile it also unravels the force field vectorial character and how its topology impacts the measurement. Here we expose an ultrasensitive method to image 2D vectorial force fields by optomechanically following the bidimensional Brownian motion of a singly clamped nanowire. This novel approach relies on angular and spectral tomography of its quasi frequency-degenerated transverse mechanical polarizations: immersing the nanoresonator in a vectorial force field does not only shift its eigenfrequencies but also rotate eigenmodes orientation as a nano-compass. This universal method is employed to map a tunable electrostatic force field whose spatial gradients can even take precedence over the intrinsic nanowire properties. Enabling vectorial force fields imaging with demonstrated sensitivities of attonewton variations over the nanoprobe Brownian trajectory will have strong impact on scientific exploration at the nanoscale.Introduction-Nanosciences were revolutionized by the invention of atomic force microscopy [1] which enabled first perceptions of the nanoworld, by measuring proximity forces exerted by a sample on a micromechanical oscillator. The subsequent emergence of nanomechanical oscillators and evolutions in readout techniques [2][3][4] lead to impressive improvements in force sensitivity [5], enabling detection of collective spin dynamics [6][7][8], single electron spin [9], mass sensing of atoms [10,11] or inertial sensing [12]. Attractive perspectives arise too when nanoresonators are hybridized to single quantum systems, such as molecular magnets [13], spin or solid states qubits [14][15][16][17]. This reduction of the probe size naturally motivates the exploration of force fields on dimensions smaller than their characteristic length scale where a great physical richness is expected, in particular for nanoscale imaging or investigations of fundamental interactions such as proximity forces or near field couplings. In this situation, measurements are performed in presence of strong force field gradients whose vectorial structure becomes crucially relevant and should be fully accounted to describe the measurement process itself [18].