An SEM-TEM Joint Nanorobotic Manipulation System for Extreme Manufacturing

Nanorobotic manipulation (NRM) provides a feasible and efficient method for nanofabrication and specialized processing, exhibiting distinct advantages from different microscopes. For the NRM in a scanning electron microscope (SEM), its superiority is mainly in task complexity with a big room and manifold tools, while the NRM in a transmission electron microscope (TEM) emphasizes on high-precision manipulation and atomic characterization. It is necessary to combine these two types of NRM to integrate their strengths in manipulation complexity and accuracy. Here, a joint NRM system is proposed to connect a dual-beam SEM and a spherical aberration-corrected TEM (Cs-TEM) by sharing a specially designed TEM holder. Combined with the SEM-based manipulators, this system can be used for device prototyping and structure construction. To illustrate its outstanding capabilities, the fabrication process of a bio-electrical-nano probe is reported in this article, involving the fabrication of basic structures by the manipulators inside an SEM and the preparation of a pair of electrodes via the electron beam irradiation inside a Cs-TEM. A selective removal phenomenon was observed and used in the electrodes’ preparation. The bombardment of electron beam removed the lighter element (carbon), while the heavier metallic element (platinum) remained, resulting in a pair of platinum electrodes with a gap of 8.33 nm. Experimental results demonstrate our NRM system is an ultrahigh precision and cost-efficient method for specialized manufacturing and indicates a new trend for NRM.