Tailoring Au Films at the Atomic Scale with an Electron Beam Tweezer.

ABSTRACT

A thin, clean pristine Au film created in a transmission electron microscope chamber was tailored by an electron beam. Various kinds of nanopatterns, including hexagonal holes and dumbbell-like patterns, were fabricated by different doses of the electron beam. A high-quality series of in situ images were recorded to explore the irradiation mechanism. The electron-matter collision enabled the electron beam to act as a tweezer to arrange atoms into a specified pattern.