In this work, we developed electrically controlled nanotweezers, which are capable of picking, moving, and placing a single sub-50 nm particle precisely and repeatably in ambient air. The nanotweezers are made… Click to show full abstract
In this work, we developed electrically controlled nanotweezers, which are capable of picking, moving, and placing a single sub-50 nm particle precisely and repeatably in ambient air. The nanotweezers are made of a fluoride polymer coated conductive atomic force microscope tip. By applying voltages on such a low surface energy tip, one can tune the binding energy between the tip and the nanoparticle up and down and consequently pick and place a nanoparticle with a high success rate (>90%). Moreover, we automated the whole pick-and-place procedure with the help of the computer vision technique, and it allows us to pattern nanoparticles into arbitrary patterns without any manual operation.
               
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