Three-terminal electric transport measurements on gold nano-particles combined withex situTEM inspection

Abstract

We have fabricated nanometer-spaced electrodes on electron-transparent silicon nitride membranes. A thin Cr/Au layer is evaporated on the backside of the membrane which serves as a gate electrode. Using these devices, we have performed three-terminal electron transport measurements on gold nano-particles at liquid helium temperature. Coulomb Blockade features have been observed and the capacitance to the gate has been extracted. After transport measurements, the Cr/Au back gate is removed and the devices are inspected with a transmission-electron microscope (TEM). TEM inspection reveals the presence of a few nano-particles in the nanogap, which is in agreement with the transport measurements. In addition, the nano-particle size as observed by TEM coincides with the one estimated from the gate capacitance value.

In Situ Transmission Electron Microscopy Imaging of Electromigration in Platinum Nanowires

“…Pt nanowires were patterned on 100-nm-thick silicon nitride membrane substrates using e-beam lithography (Gao et al, 2009). The Pt wire was 300 nm long and had a cross-section (width × thickness) of 200 × 14 nm 2 .…”

Effect of experimental conditions on size control of Au nanoparticles synthesized by atmospheric microplasma electrochemistry

“…The preoccupation of scientists with NPs preparation remained unabated, primarily by their fascinating properties and potential applications in catalysis [2-6], biology [6-10], optics [11,12], electronics [13,14], solar cells [15], sensing [16-18], and medicine [6,19]. Among the various methods operated for the preparation of noble metal NPs [20-30], recently reported atmospheric microplasma electrochemistry (plasma-liquid electrochemistry or gas-liquid interface discharges) is the most reliable and attractive one, on account of its advantage in metal NPs production such as fast and environment-friendly (any toxic-reducing agents or stabilizers such as NaBH and TBAB [23,29] are not involved).…”

Scanning probe microscopy imaging of metallic nanocontacts

“…We find that first the whole wire is heated and later during the thinning process as the slit forms the current runs over several smaller contacts which needs less power.Molecular electronics has been proposed in order to overcome the size limitations of current silicon-based computer technology [1]. To investigate possible transistor functionality of single molecules, it is necessary to fabricate three contacts to the molecules of appropriate size [2,3]. Different approaches to obtain nanometersized gaps in metallic wires are known, like the mechanically controllable break junction technique [4,5] or electromigration (EM) [6].…”