Solid gold nanostructures fabricated by electron beam deposition

Direct writing with gold by electron beam deposition is a method for rapid fabrication of electrically conducting nanostructures. An environmental scanning electron microscope (ESEM) equipped with a source of the precursor gas dimethylacetylacetonate gold(Ill) was used to fabricate nanoscale tips and bridges. Transmission electron microscopy was used to study how the composition of these structures was affected when the background gas in the ESEM chamber and the electron beam parameters were varied. The nanostructures were layered composites of up to three different materials each characterized by a certain range of gold/carbon ratios. Above a certain threshold of ESEM chamber water vapor pressure and a certain threshold of electron beam current, the deposited tips contained a solid polycrystalline gold core. The deposition technique was used to fabricate free-standing nanowires and to solder free-standing carbon nanotubes to gold electrodes as well as to other carbon nanotubes.