Controlled nanowire growth with a nanorobotic manipulator

In this paper we report that a single nanowire was successfully grown by controlling the distance between the emitter and substrates with a nanorobotic manipulator moving at a speed of 15 nm s−1. A tree-like nanowire was grown on the tip of an individual carbon nanotube (CNT) without interelectrode control. These nanowires were induced by field emission, with tungsten hexacarbonyl (W(CO)6) as precursor. The nanowire's geometric properties were characterized with transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and its composition was obtained with TEM energy dispersive x-ray spectrometry (EDS). The EDS results showed that the nanowires are mainly made of tungsten and carbon. Degradation of the CNT emitter is an important problem and influences the device's stability and lifetime. We propose that the growth of nanowires can be used for modifying degraded emitters.

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