Electromigration-induced formation of percolating adsorbate islands during condensation from the gaseous phase: a computational study

• Alina V. Dvornichenko,
• Vasyl O. Kharchenko and
• Dmitrii O. Kharchenko

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2021, 12, 694–703, doi:10.3762/bjnano.12.55

• of nanocontacts [24][25], the direction of movement of monoatomic steps and islands on the surface of crystals [22][23][26], the formation of faces on the surface of crystals and crystalline surfaces [27]. Studies of the effects induced by surface EM in thin monocomponent monocrystalline films

Electromigration-induced directional steps towards the formation of single atomic Ag contacts

• Atasi Chatterjee,
• Christoph Tegenkamp and
• Herbert Pfnür

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 680–687, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.55

• structures and at grain boundaries. Nevertheless, we showed recently that it can be used reliably for the formation of single atomic point contacts after careful pre-structuring of the initial Ag nanostructures. The process of formation of nanocontacts by EM down to a single-atom point contact was

• essentially only one junction that is conducting. Such instabilities seem to be characteristic to the EM process, since they are commonly not observed in MCBJ experiments but have also been found in recent EM experiments with Cu nanocontacts [24]. Since a distribution of contacts of various sizes exist, there

• histogram in Figure 2 and have also been observed in simulations of Ag nanocontacts [7]. The results of the FIB-patterned bow-tie structures corroborate the assumptions made above that essentially a single contact was measured already starting with mesoscopic bow-tie structures. The conductance histogram

Recent highlights in nanoscale and mesoscale friction

• Andrea Vanossi,
• Dirk Dietzel,
• Andre Schirmeisen,
• Ernst Meyer,
• Rémy Pawlak,
• Thilo Glatzel,
• Marcin Kisiel,
• Shigeki Kawai and
• Nicola Manini

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1995–2014, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.190

• directed toward extended but still atomically flat nanocontacts where friction is not only determined by the interaction between a single slider atom and the substrate, but is instead crucially influenced by the collective behavior of the atoms forming the two contacting bodies. This kind of behavior

Review: Electrostatically actuated nanobeam-based nanoelectromechanical switches – materials solutions and operational conditions

• Liga Jasulaneca,
• Jelena Kosmaca,
• Raimonds Meija,
• Jana Andzane and
• Donats Erts

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 271–300, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.29

• : nanocontacts; nanoelectromechanical switches; nanowires; NEM; reliability; Review Introduction Nanoelectromechanical (NEM) switches represent a class of nanoscale devices, integrating both electrical and mechanical functionality of nanostructures to process external stimuli applied to the device and

• interface interactions govern materials properties and behaviour [4]. Thus, NEM switches provide an exciting opportunity for gaining fundamental insight in such fields as surface science and electrical and mechanical processes in nanocontacts. The NEM switch components can be produced from a wide range of

• nanobeam-based NEM contact switches, fabricated by different methods. The processes occurring in nanocontacts and the improvement of their reliability in terms of choice of materials for both electrodes and switching elements are covered in the light of the experimental findings in the field. Methods and

Magnetic properties of optimized cobalt nanospheres grown by focused electron beam induced deposition (FEBID) on cantilever tips

• Soraya Sangiao,
• César Magén,
• Darius Mofakhami,
• Grégoire de Loubens and
• José María De Teresa

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2106–2115, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.210

• investigations [25], nanoconstrictions and nanocontacts for domain-wall pinning [26] and Andreev reflection studies [27]. The growth of such numerous types of 2D and 3D magnetic nanostructures has been possible thanks to the main virtues of the FEBID technique such as: arbitrary design of the beam scan path [28

Formation of pure Cu nanocrystals upon post-growth annealing of Cu–C material obtained from focused electron beam induced deposition: comparison of different methods

• Aleksandra Szkudlarek,
• Alfredo Rodrigues Vaz,
• Yucheng Zhang,
• Andrzej Rudkowski,
• Czesław Kapusta,
• Rolf Erni,
• Stanislav Moshkalev and
• Ivo Utke

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 1508–1517, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.156

• ], thermal sensors [8], photodetectors [9], and mode stabilizers for vertical surface emitting lasers [10]. Other deposits were used as ferromagnetic wires [11][12], superconducting wires [13], plasmonic structures [14], or as electrode nanocontacts [15][16]. The feasibility of obtaining 3D nanostructures

Chains of carbon atoms: A vision or a new nanomaterial?

• Florian Banhart

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 559–569, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.58

• is indebted to O. Cretu, A. La Torre, C. Pham-Huu, A. Botello-Mendez, and J.-C. Charlier for fruitful collaboration in the field of carbon chains. Financial support from the Agence Nationale de Recherche (grants NANOCONTACTS NT09 507527 and NANOCELLS ANR12 BS1000401) is gratefully acknowledged.

Low-dose patterning of platinum nanoclusters on carbon nanotubes by focused-electron-beam-induced deposition as studied by TEM

• Xiaoxing Ke,
• Carla Bittencourt,
• Sara Bals and
• Gustaaf Van Tendeloo

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2013, 4, 77–86, doi:10.3762/bjnano.4.9

• various nanostructures beyond the simple formation of nanocontacts. For instance, by applying different precursor and deposition parameters, nanostructures of different dimensions, different chemical compositions and, thus, different properties can be formed at the CNT surface. Deposition of silicon [18

Sub-10 nm colloidal lithography for circuit-integrated spin-photo-electronic devices

• Adrian Iovan,
• Marco Fischer,
• Roberto Lo Conte and
• Vladislav Korenivski

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 884–892, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.98

• ), and the larger the angle of incidence the deeper below 10 nm the nanocontacts are due to the double shadowing effect illustrated in Figure 5a (direct mask shadowing and shadowing from material build up on the mask edge). We note that the SiO2 under the openings in the Al mask is significantly undercut

• deposition, near-normal incidence and approximately 45° incidence, and estimate that the average size of the nanocontacts obtained for the angled deposition was approximately 5 nm. Finally, surface protection for subsequent processing steps was done with two layers of Cr(5 nm)/Au(10 nm) deposited by e-beam

• (Figure 5a, top panel; see Experimental for process details). Device examples The focus of this paper is the new method of integrating sub-10 nm structures into nanodevices. We briefly demonstrate the method using two physical effects found in magnetic nanocontacts, namely, spin-magnon and spin-photon

Reversible mechano-electrochemical writing of metallic nanostructures with the tip of an atomic force microscope

• Christian Obermair,
• Marina Kress,
• Andreas Wagner and
• Thomas Schimmel

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 824–830, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.92

• ]; transport through single molecules between metallic nanocontacts was studied intensively [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24]. Even a single-atom transistor [25][26][27][28][29] was demonstrated, i.e., a device that allows the controlled switching “on” and “off” of an electrical current by the

Revealing thermal effects in the electronic transport through irradiated atomic metal point contacts

• Bastian Kopp,
• Zhiwei Yi,
• Daniel Benner,
• Fang-Qing Xie,
• Christian Obermair,
• Thomas Schimmel,
• Johannes Boneberg,
• Paul Leiderer and
• Elke Scheer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 703–711, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.80

• , in which the influence of light on the conductance behaviour of nanocontacts has been studied, and various mechanisms for such an influence have been suggested [14][15]. In complementary experimental studies it was shown that the conductance of electrical point contacts in a range of one to several

Molecular-resolution imaging of pentacene on KCl(001)

• Julia L. Neff,
• Jan Götzen,
• Enhui Li,
• Michael Marz and
• Regina Hoffmann-Vogel

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 186–191, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.20

• -Stg 239838 NANOCONTACTS).

Lifetime analysis of individual-atom contacts and crossover to geometric-shell structures in unstrained silver nanowires

• Christian Obermair,
• Holger Kuhn and
• Thomas Schimmel

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 740–745, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.81

• quantum conductance values [11]. In order to effectively control the behavior of an electrochemically controlled atomic-scale transistor a detailed understanding of the mechanism of formation of the contacts bridging the nanoscale gap is necessary. The conductance of nanocontacts strongly depends both on

• contacts without the need to apply mechanical deformation. In this way, plastic deformations are avoided and highly stable and defect-free nanocontacts are produced [24][25][26][27][28]. This is especially true for silver; due to its high electrochemical exchange-current density, electrochemically

• conductance. Here, we study the transport properties and conductance-distribution statistics of electrochemically fabricated silver nanowires. We give a complete description of silver nanocontacts starting from individual atomic configurations (i.e., one or two atom contacts) proceeding to electronic-shell

An MCBJ case study: The influence of π-conjugation on the single-molecule conductance at a solid/liquid interface

• Wenjing Hong,
• Hennie Valkenier,
• Gábor Mészáros,
• David Zsolt Manrique,
• Artem Mishchenko,
• Alexander Putz,
• Pavel Moreno García,
• Colin J. Lambert,
• Jan C. Hummelen and
• Thomas Wandlowski

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 699–713, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.76

• . The latter represents the noise level. The slight increase of the baseline in the histograms results from contributions of the gap-modulated tunneling current, which originates from variations in the solvent conformation as well as from the “snap-back” distances of the gold–gold nanocontacts upon