Shaping single walled nanotubes

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a method using electron irradiation in a specialized microscope to precisely reshape single-walled nanotubes, enabling controlled modifications like changing their chirality with nanometer accuracy.

Contribution

It introduces a novel nano-electron-lithography technique for controlled nanotube reshaping based on optimized electron irradiation conditions.

Findings

Controlled nanotube reshaping achieved

Chirality change possible with atomic precision

Optimized irradiation parameters based on density functional calculations

Abstract

We show that electron irradiation in a dedicated scanning transmission microscope can be used as a nano-electron-lithography technique allowing the controlled reshaping of single walled carbon and boron nitride nanotubes. The required irradiation conditions have been optimised on the basis of total knock-on cross sections calculated within density functional based methods. It is then possible to induce morphological modifications, such as a change of the tube chirality, by removing severals tens of atoms with a nanometrical spatial resolution. These irradiation techniques could open new opportunities for nano-engeneering a large variety of nanostructured materials.