Direct milling of 25 nm in diameter gold and graphene nanogears by a focused He+ ion beam

Makoto Sakurai (1) , Shoko Nagano , Christian Joachim (2)

1 WPI-MANA - International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics
2 CEMES-GNS - Groupe NanoSciences

The direct focussed helium ion beam milling of solid state nanogears down to 20 nm in diameter is presented. Sapphire is the supporting surface to release the heat created by this milling process. For this resist free process, the He+ dosing was first calibrated to limit the lateral fusion in the deposited nanomaterial during the sculpturing of the teeth on this sapphire surface. 25 nm in diameter solid state nanogear were fabricated in a 20 nm in thickness Au nanomaterial, in a multilayer and in a graphene monolayer having a van der Waals thickness compatible with a single molecule-gears for transmission of rotation. Optimizing again the He+ dosing on a transmission electron microscope grid, free standing graphene monolayer nanogear were also sculptured down to 40 nm in diameter.

Keywords: Focused He ion beam; scanning helium microscope; heat generation; solid state nanogear; graphene

Domains: Physics [physics]

Makoto Sakurai, Shoko Nagano, Christian Joachim. Direct milling of 25 nm in diameter gold and graphene nanogears by a focused He+ ion beam. Vacuum, In press, ⟨10.1016/j.vacuum.2022.111605⟩. ⟨hal-03726584⟩