| Pacific Rim Symposium on Surfaces, Coatings and Interfaces (PacSurf 2016) | |
| Nanomaterials | Tuesday Sessions |
| Session NM-TuE |
| Session: | Nanofabrication and Nanodevices II |
| Presenter: | Tomoyuki Ito, Tokyo University of Agriculture & Technology, Japan |
| Authors: | T. Ito, Tokyo University of Agriculture & Technology, Japan K. Inoue, Tokyo University of Agriculture & Technology, Japan J. Shirakashi, Tokyo University of Agriculture & Technology, Japan |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
Au nanogaps have been attractive for the fabrication of single-molecule devices. For this reason, many different approaches of Au nanogaps have been reported, including electromigration [1], break junction [2] and electroplating [3]. We have already reported on fabricating narrower Ni nanogaps by controlling tunnel resistance of the nanogaps using field-emission-induced electromigration. We call this method “activation” [4, 5]. In this report, the application of activation to Au nanogaps is investigated in comparison with that of Ni nanogaps.
Under room temperature and vacuum condition, the activation was applied to initial Au nanogaps with a separation of around 50 nm. The initial Au nanogaps showed high tunnel resistance of more than 500 TΩ. After performing the activation with the preset current Is of above 300 nA, the tunnel resistance of Au nanogaps gradually decreased to less than 10 MΩ. Activation properties of Au nanogaps are quite similar to those of Ni nanogaps ever reported [4, 5]. Thus, the results imply that the tunnel resistance of Au nanogaps can be controlled in the same way as that of Ni nanogaps using activation.
References
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[2] J. M. van Ruitenbeek, A. Alvarez, I. Pineyro, C. Grahmann, P.Joyez, M. H. Devoret, D. Esteve, and C. Urbina, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 67 (1995) 108-111.
[3] B. Liu, J. Xiang, J. H. Tian, C. Zhong, B. W. Mao, F. Z. Yang, Z. B. Chen, S. T. Wu, and Z. Q. Tian, Electrochim. Acta. 50 (2005) 3041-3047.
[4] S. Kayashima, K. Takahashi, M. Motoyama, and J. Shirakashi, Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 46 (2007) L907-L909.
[5] W. Kume, Y. Tomoda, M. Hanada, and J. Shirakashi, J Nanosci. Nanotechnol. 10 (2010) 7239-7243.