| Pacific Rim Symposium on Surfaces, Coatings and Interfaces (PacSurf 2016) | |
| Nanomaterials | Tuesday Sessions |
| Session NM-TuE |
| Session: | Nanofabrication and Nanodevices II |
| Presenter: | Kazuki Inoue, Tokyo University of Agriculture & Technology, Japan |
| Authors: | K. Inoue, Tokyo University of Agriculture & Technology, Japan T. Ito, Tokyo University of Agriculture & Technology, Japan J. Shirakashi, Tokyo University of Agriculture & Technology, Japan |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
We have proposed a simple method for the fabrication and control of nanogaps, called "activation" [1]. In the activation scheme, electromigration (EM) is induced by field emission current passing through the nanogaps. Hence, the control of tunnel resistance of Ni nanogaps was achieved using the activation method [1, 2]. As expected, the activation method has been applied to Ni nanogaps in vacuum conditions. On the other hand, controlled EM technique is generally applicable to Au nanowires in ambient air conditions [3]. Here, we investigate activation properties for Au nanogaps in ambient air conditions, from the point of view of practical use of activation method. First, initial nanogaps of Au, separated by several tens of nanometers, were fabricated on SiO2/Si substrate by electron-beam lithography and lift-off process. Then, the activation method was performed in ambient air at room temperature. The tunnel resistance of the Au nanogaps after performing the activation became smaller than that of before performing the activation, resulting in a decrease in the separation of the Au nanogaps. Thus, these results suggest that the activation method can be applied to Au nanogaps even in ambient air conditions.
Rreferences
[1] S. Kayashima, K. Takahashi, M. Motoyama, and J. Shirakashi, Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 46 (2007) L907.
[2] Y. Tomoda, K. Takahashi, M. Hanada, W. Kume and J. Shirakashi, J. Vac. Sci. Technol. B 27 (2009) 813.
[3] D. R. Strachan, D. E. Smith, D. E. Johnston, T.-H. Park, M. J. Therien, D. A. Bonnell, and A. T. Johnson, Appl. Phys. Lett. 86, (2005) 043109.