Electron microscopy researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a unique way to build 3-D structures with finely controlled shapes as small as one to two billionths of a meter.
The ORNL study published in the journal Small demonstrates how scanning transmission electron microscopes, normally used as imaging tools, are also capable of precision sculpting of nanometer-sized 3-D features in complex oxide materials.
By offering single atomic plane precision, the technique could find uses in fabricating structures for functional nanoscale devices such as microchips. The structures grow epitaxially, or in perfect crystalline alignment, which ensures that the same electrical and mechanical properties extend throughout the whole material.
"We can make smaller things with more precise shapes," said ORNL's Albina Borisevich, who led the study. "The process is also epitaxial, which gives us much more pronounced control over properties than we could accomplish with other approaches."
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