Electron Beam Nanoprocessing of a Carbon Nanotube Film Using a Variable Pressure Scanning Electron Microscope

Abstract

We demonstrate a novel method of processing carbon nanotubes using a variable pressure scanning electron microscope. Lines were processed in a nanotube film by electron beam irradiation in oxygen gas and nitrogen gas. The processing mechanism can be explained in terms of gas ion sputtering and chemical reaction. In this experiment, the narrowest line width of 120 nm was achieved in a nitrogen atmosphere.

Methods of electron microscopy of biological and abiogenic structures in artificial gas atmospheres

“…Two fundamental elements of atmospheric elec tron microscopy and electron microscopy in a gas atmosphere for biological applications can be distin guished: (a) achieving variable pressure of the atmo sphere being pumped and (b) selecting a biologically optimum chemical composition of the atmosphere. The first attempts at creating electron microscopes with controlled pressure of the gas date back to the early 1960s [38], but their actualization did not take place until the creation of ESEM in 1980s, while cur rently variable pressure electron microscopes are heavily used for charge contrast mapping of biological samples [39] and similar tasks of biological visualiza tion [40], as well as for ultramicroscopic sample prep aration and processing of samples at a nanostructured level [41]. The second problem is somewhat more complicated because, if electron microscopy is con sidered in a reactor approximation [42], it is necessary to take into account the inevitable interaction of the gas being pumped into the chamber with the gaseous components of biological tissues, which is particularly relevant in the case of objects popular for electron microscopic visualization such as gas vacuoles of sin gle celled animals [43] or lung tissues [44], as well as in experiments on the study of the secondary structure of protein in gas vesicles [45] and applied test mea surements on gas permeable lenses [46].…”