Electron-beam-induced deposition with carbon nanotube emitters

Electron-beam-induced deposition (EBID) is performed with multiwalled carbon nanotube emitters that are assembled to atomic force microscope cantilevers through nanorobotic manipulations. A typical experiment shows that under 120 V bias, field emission current 2 muA occurs from a nanotube emitter. In comparison with conventional EBID with a Schottky-type electron gun of a field-emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM) in the same vacuum chamber, the deposition rate of the nanotube emitter reaches up to 12.2% of that of FESEM although the bias and the emission current are only 0.8% and 1.9% of those of FESEM (15 kV and 106 muA). The concept of parallel EBID is also presented. (C) 2002 American Institute of Physics.