CARBOPROBE: New Near-Field Probes Based on Carbon Nanocones
Research project selected under the 2015 call for proposals
Principal Investigator :
Marc Monthioux ()
CEMES (Groupes M3, GNS et plateforme caractérisation)
Type of project : Collaborative Project
Partner team(s) :
LPCNO
Date (start/end) : 2016 - 2019
Feasibility tests for the Carbon-nanoCone-Tips (CnCTs) as AFM probes:
(a) Example of a CnCT mounted as an AFM probe using a regular Si probe as support (not optimised). The size of the tip apex is that of the diameter of the primary single carbon nanotube onto which the overall morphology was grown, i.e., few nanometers;
(b) to (e) Comparisons of the imaging performances for fresh Si probes (left) and CnCT probes (right) for gold nanojunction, Ti surface, polymer pad onto a virus, and ionic liquid droplets, respectively.
Images are systematically better for the CnCT regarding resolution and artefacts.
All images obtained by tapping mode.
Abstract
CEMES has the unique expertise to prepare carbon nanocones by a Time-of-Flight CVD process. These cones exhibit amazing conducting properties which make them electron emitters for cold-field emission guns with unprecedented performances, successfully tested in a transmission electron microscope. The same carbon cones have also shown interesting promises as atomic force microscopy (AFM) probes. Combining those two backgrounds and gathering the needed competences available within NEXT (CEMES, LPCNO), this project aims at optimising the carbon morphology, and then adapting, testing the performances, and assessing the possible superiority of these carbon nanocones as scanning probes for a variety of near-field methods, most of them requiring a conductive probe: Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM), conducting AFM, Kelvin force microscopy, AFM nanoxerography, single-spin microscopy, and tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (TERS).