Carbon nanotubes pickup by van der Waals force based on nanorobotics manipulation inside SEM

Abstract

A method of picking up carbon nanotubes (CNTs) from nanotube bulk by van der Waals force inside a scanning electron microscopy is presented. An atomic force microscope cantilever was employed as end effector of nanorobotics manipulators for CNT picking up. A manipulation strategy was established by analysing the van der Waals force of three different types of contacting models. Three groups of experiments were designed and carried out to investigate the effects of different factors. Factors including pickup angle, pickup contact area between the CNT and the cantilever and pickup speed of the end effector were discussed. The results shown that a pickup angle at 90.1°and a pickup speed lower than 10 nm/step with a pickup contact length more than 1.5 µm would increase the probability of picking up CNT successfully.

3D assembly of carbon nanotubes for fabrication of field-effect transistors through nanomanipulation and electron-beam-induced deposition

“…The CNT bridging manipulation was carried out inside an SEM (Merlin Compact, Zeiss). For the initial bridging prior to EBID, van der Waals force maintained the contact between the CNT and Au surface [27]. We measured the total resistance in this case by using a semiconductor characterization system (Model 4200-SCS).…”

Simulation and fabrication of carbon nanotube–nanoparticle interconnected structures

“…In 2003, Fukuda developed a nano-operating platform system with 16 degrees of freedom integrated with four operating units (Fukuda et al, 2003;Yang et al, 2016;Shi et al, 2017), which is capable of realizing nanoscale-to millimeterscale step motion and measuring the electrical properties (Yu et al, 2017a) and physical properties such as Young's modulus (Fukuda et al, 2005) of carbon nanotube materials as well as controlling the construction of complex nanos-tructures in three dimensions (Yu et al, 2017b). Zhang et al (2011) developed a new positioning device to help positioning in nano-operation.…”

Determination of Hamaker constant for CNT and AFM probe configuration inside SEM

“…In the case of macroscopic objects, van der Waals force between two small particles or between particles and substrates can be characterised by the Hamaker constant [2]. In our research, the quantitative description of Hamaker constant is fundamental in a wealth of carbon nanotube (CNT) manipulation [3], such as CNTs picking‐up and place [4, 5], CNT field effect transistor (CNTFET) assembly [6] and characterisation of CNTs [7]. The determination of the Hamaker constant is an important field of research [8].…”