In this study, we have demonstrated successful site-specific cross-sectioning of carbon-nanotube - metal junctions which provided samples suitable for high resolution transmission electron microscopy and electron energy loss spectroscopy. For the cross-sectioning, we have suggested a modified technique based on combination of the Focused Ion Beam (FIB) lift-out and the conventional Ar+ ion milling techniques. Electron-transparent cross-sections of multiwall carbon nanotubes showing no significant surface amorphization or Ga contamination (typical artifacts of conventional FIB lift-out technique) were obtained. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy and electron energy loss spectroscopy of a multi-wall carbon nanotube cross-section have been carried out.

We have investigated the conductivity variation of copper phthalocyanine nano-crystals deposited on SiO2 and mica. The density of surface hydroxyl group on SiO2 was estimated to be more than 10 times larger than that on mica by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The grown crystals on both substrates were categorized to be a-axis orientation of α–form. Conductance-distance (G-d) measurements for various crystalline grains having different heights have been carried out with current imaging using atomic force microscope. The obtained conductivity vs. crystal height plot indicates that lower height crystals have higher conductivities on both surfaces. Besides, the lower height crystals on SiO2 have higher conductivity than those on mica. These results suggest that the electrons in the bottommost molecular layer are transferred to the electrophilic functional groups on the substrate surface. Such a phenomenon at organic semiconductor/insulator interface is reported for the first time.

Electrical conductance of single stranded DNA (5′-TTT TTT TTT T/3 Thio MC3-D/-3′) monolayer patterns on Au surface is compared with those of various organic molecular patterns via the conductance microscope (CM) technique that allows one to take nanoscale conductance images utilizing a conducting AFM tip in contact mode AFM. In the experiment, reference molecules and ssDNA are patterned on the same substrate via direct deposition methods such as dip-pen nanolithography and microcontact printing. Then, conductance microscope image is recorded revealing the relative conductivity of ssDNA patterns relative to various reference molecules. 16-mercaptohexadecanoic acid and 2-mercaptobenzimidazole patterns are found conducting better than the ssDNA patterns. This result indicates that the ssDNA with 10T bases is a relatively poor electrical conductor. The capabilities of CM technique are also tested on various nanostructures including the single wall carbon nanotube junction.

The accurate determination of residual stress/strain in thin films is especially important in the emerging field of MicroElectroMechanical Systems (MEMS). In this article, a focused ion beam (FIB) moiré method is proposed and demonstrated to measure the strain in MEMS structures. This technique is based on the advantages of the FIB system in nano-fabrication, imaging, in-situ deposition, and fine adjustment. Nano-grating lines with 70 nm width and 140 nm spacing are directly written on the top of the MEMS structures by ion milling without the requirement of an etch mask. The FIB moiré pattern is formed by the interference between a prepared specimen grating and FIB raster scan lines. The strain of the MEMS structures is derived by calculating the average spacing of moiré fringes. Since the local strain of a MEMS structure itself can be monitored during the process, the FIB moiré technique has many potential applications in the mechanical metrology of MEMS. As an example, the strain distribution along the sticking MEMS structures, and the contribution of surface oxidization and mass loading to the cantilever strain is determined by this FIB moiré technique.

Covalently-linked adducts of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) with biomolecules have been fabricated. Results are presented here for DNA-SWNT and for biotin-SWNT adducts. DNA-SWNT adducts are shown to be biochemically accessible and to exhibit high selectivity, favoring hybridization with complementary vs. non-complementary DNA sequences. Biotin-SWNT adducts were also prepared and used to direct the assembly of nanotubes onto a biotinylated glass surface.

In this paper we present techniques, utilizing dielectrophoresis and electrohydrodynamics, which can possibly be used for assembling devices suspended in a solution onto a binding site on a substrate. We explored the concepts using micro-scale negatively charged polystyrene beads and rectangular silicon blocks. Dielectrophoretic forces on devices in buffer solutions were examined as a function of frequency of the applied AC signal. The observed results can be explained by taking in account electro-thermal and AC electroosmotic effects. The study described in the paper can be used for placing and assembling micro and nano-electronic devices and objects at specific sites on various substrates, in combination with bio-inspired biological binding techniques such as DNA hybridization, antigen-antibody interactions, and ligand-receptor (avidin-biotin) interactions.

We present microscopic study of electronic and transport properties of single molecules sandwiched between two metallic contacts using Green's function based modeling approach within both ab initio and self-consistent semi-empirical framework. The methods are applied to thiol-based organic molecules and finite-size single-wall carbon nanotubes respectively. Results on electrostatics, transmission and current-voltage characteristics are presented.

We have constructed an advanced electric probing system, which is a triple-probe atomic force microscope (T-AFM). The T-AFM consists of “Nanotweezers” and an AFM with a carbon nanotube probe. Using this system, we fabricated a single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs)/deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) three-terminal device and measured the current-voltage (I-V) curves of this device. In this three-terminal device, DNA strands were entangled with the SWNT bundle, and behaved as a gate-insulator-layer. This three-terminal device worked as a metal-insulator-semiconductor field effect transistor (MIS-FET) with depletion switching behavior.

Carbon nanotubes have the potential of being used as interconnects and active semiconducting material in future electronic circuits. It is necessary to study such nano-scale circuits with probes that can make measurements with molecular precision. We describe results using two nanoprobe techniques, namely scanning surface potential microscopy (SSPM), and conductive tip atomic force microscopy (CT-AFM), in the investigation of electrical properties of nanotube circuits. Vertical arrays of multi-walled nanotubes, grown in a porous alumina template with a metal back contact were analyzed. Current mapping confirmed that the nanotubes were electrically connected to the back contact. Isolated single-walled nanotube bundles deposited on an oxidized silicon wafer, and contacted electrically through chromium electrodes were also studied. Contact potential differences between the metal and nanotubes, and the current in some connected nanotubes were measured. Measurements of contact potential with different metals, and the nature of microscopic transport is crucial. Contact potential measurements can also provide fast and reliable characterization of junctions between metallic and semiconducting nanotubes and metals electrodes.

A structure for organic TFTs suitable for being transferred on unusual substrates is described in each technological step. The proposed device consists in a “bottom-structure” assembled on a flexible and transparent insulating layer, without any substrate, with source and drain contacts on one side and the gate on the opposite side. The main advantage is to avoid the substrate because the insulator itself is able to support the whole structure. For this reason, application to any kind of substrates after the built-in process is possible.

For measuring molecular device, we developed a dual-probe scanning tunneling microscope (D-STM) composed of two STM systems in which a carbon nanotube (NT) was used for STM tip. Using D-STM, we fabricated a NT ring device. The NT ring device showed a switching behavior with applying gate bias. Furthermore, in STM imaging for various gate biases, we could observe directly hole injection into the NT ring.

Thiophene-phenylene oligomer semiconductors (structures below) have many favorable attributes for electronics on flexible and rounded substrates. They are synthesized in 2–3 steps from readily available starting materials and are chemically stable. Their mobilities are typically above 0.01 cm2/Vs and their threshold voltages can be tuned by altering the thiophene-phenylene ratio. Deposition from solution is facile, and cast films with usable mobilities are repeatedly obtained on a variety of surfaces. Higher-order function such as nonvolatile memory and chemical sensitivity have been demonstrated.

Our system is the electrochemical approaches include the detection of hybridization from nonlabeling nucleic acids to protein-bound nucleic acids using soluble mediators with K4Fe(CN)6 solutions. In order to generate bio-functional surfaces, the streptavidin(SAv)-biotin system is used. A 50 % change of redox peak current after hybridization measured with 50 ?M concentration of target DNA. We suggest that this result comes from the efficient electron transport through the SAv-biotin interaction. Our electrochemical detection system showed good reproducibility on a chip with non-labeling DNA hybridization detection.

In this work we report first results on a direct deposition of 2–4nm gold nanoparticles onto DNA strands. In a two step protocol first cis-Pt (cis-diamminedichloroplatinum(II), cis-Pt(NH3)2Cl2) is intercalated into a DNA duplex. In a second step cysteamine stabilized gold nanoparticles are immobilized on DNA due to a ligand exchange (NH3 vs. NH2-R) at the Pt center which was done in solution as well as on surface bound oligonucleotides. The DNA-nanoparticle assemblies are prepared on mica and silicon and are imaged by AFM.

Lamination of metal-coated elastomeric stamps against thin films of electroactive organics provides non-invasive, high resolution electrical contacts for investigations of charge transport in these materials. This approach uses the features of relief on the stamps to define, with nanometer resolution, the geometry and separation of electrodes that are formed by uniform evaporation of a thin metal film onto the stamp. Soft, room temperature contact of an element of this type with an organic semiconductor film on a gate dielectric and a gate yields a high performance top contact transistor with source/drain electrodes supported by the stamp. We review here our use of this approach to study the electrical properties of the organic semiconductor pentacene in thin film transistors structures. We also introduce a method for using the same techniques and structures to probe transport through organic monolayers.

Protein patterning techniques are crucial for the development of antibody-based biosensor and the study of controlled cell growth. This paper discusses a protein patterning technique based on microelectronic fabrication, DNA hybridization and biotin-streptavidin pair. A gold-on-silicon-dioxide substrate with micron size pattern was fabricated with photolithography and lift-off process. The average surface roughness of the gold pattern is 4.3 nm, measured by contact mode AFM. Thiol derivatized single stranded DNA was attached to the gold pattern surface by the chemical bonding between gold atom and sulfur atom. Surface attached DNA was then hybridized with a biotin conjugated complementary DNA sequence. Thus, the gold pattern was translated into a biotin pattern with similar resolution. Fluorescein conjugated streptavidin was patterned as demonstration. Fluorescence microscopy shows relative uniform streptavidin coverage of micron resolution and low background non-specific binding. The proposed protein patterning technique takes advantage of the high resolution of modern microelectronic fabrication. It has the potential of reaching sub-micron resolution. The biotin-streptavidin pair provides extremely specific and stable linking for protein immobilization. To show its application in biological inspired self-assembly, this technique was used successfully in the self-assembly of 20 nm streptavidin conjugated gold particles.

Semi-empirical (AM1) electronic structure calculations are reported on a pH-switchable [2] rotaxane whose synthesis was reported in [Angew. Chem. Int. Ed, 36 (1997) 1904] . The [2] rotaxane possesses two cationic binding sites, with different affinities toward dibenzo [24] crown-8 (the ring component of the [2] rotaxane) depending upon the pH of the system. The computational results capture this pH-sensitive bistability, the key device-like characteristic of the rotaxane.

Metallic nanowires represent very interesting systems due to new phenomena such as quantum conductance and unexpected long interatomic distances attaining 0.3–0.5 nm. These large distances represent a challenge for physical interpretation. In this work we present experimental data from transmission electron microscopy and results from ab initio density functional calculations for suspended gold chains. We show that large distances as 0.5 nm can be easily explained by the presence of carbon atoms as contaminants, while distances ranging from 0.29 up to 0.36 nm might be explained as resulting of a mixture of clean stressed and contaminated linear chains.

Single wall carbon nanotubes have aroused a great deal of interest because of their unique combination of electrical, physical and mechanical properties. However, the widespread use of SWNTs in composites and electronic devices is limited because of the difficulty of dispersing and processing these materials. This paper describes a method for depositing and aligning SWNTs from a dispersed solution onto a substrate under the influence of an electric field. Results indicate that SWNTs can be aligned in bulk in the direction of electric field lines, and that individual SWNT ropes may be deposited between two electrodes. The extent and type of deposition depends upon the electrode geometry and processing time. Electrical alignment of SWNTs is an enabling technology allowing manipulation of nanomaterials using standard processing. It could eventually lead to a wide range of products, such as nanocomposites with aligned fillers and nanoelectronic devices.

A computational procedure is presented for investigating photo-induced switchable rotaxanes and demonstrated for a known system. This procedure starts with the generation of more than 104 chemically reasonable rotaxane conformations based on an empirical intramolecular potential energy function. Single-point energy calculations at the semi-empirical (AM1) level are carried out for each structure in the singlet (ground), triplet, and anionic doublet states. The structural features are assigned and then correlated with energy for each state. What emerges is a profile of the structure-energy relationship that captures the salient features of the system that endow it with device-like character. Full geometry optimization of a subset of co-conformations (∼1%) demonstrates that the procedure based on single-point calculations is sufficient to obtain a profile of the relationship of structural features to energy that is consistent with experiments, at greatly reduced computational cost.