Tailoring Au Films at the Atomic Scale with an Electron Beam Tweezer

J Nanosci Nanotechnol. 2020 Dec 1;20(12):7743-7747. doi: 10.1166/jnn.2020.17198.

Abstract

A thin, clean pristine Au film created in a transmission electron microscope chamber was tailored by an electron beam. Various kinds of nanopatterns, including hexagonal holes and dumbbell-like patterns, were fabricated by different doses of the electron beam. A high-quality series of in situ images were recorded to explore the irradiation mechanism. The electron-matter collision enabled the electron beam to act as a tweezer to arrange atoms into a specified pattern.