Length adjustment of carbon nanotube probe by electron bombardment

A method for the processing of an individual nanotube, which is based on the thermally assisted field evaporation process, has been performed using a nanomanipulator installed in a scanning electron microscope. One nanotube is placed opposite another at a distance of about one micrometer and voltage is applied between them. As the voltage is increased, one of the nanotubes is locally heated by electron bombardment at the tip and is shortened by thermally assisted field evaporation, where another nanotube is used as an electron emission source. A nanotube for an atomic force microscope probe has successfully been processed on a scale of similar to 100 nm using the proposed method.