Reproducibility and field emission characteristics of nanotips fabricated by local electron bombardment

The rapid advance in microscopy in the last few decades enabled researchers to fabricate, manipulate and characterize materials at nano-scale. The fabrication of ultra-sharp tips with an apex of few nanometers (referred to as nanotips) and single atom tips (SATs) considerably optimizes the image resolution of scanning probe microscopes and electron microscopes to reach the level of atomic resolution. Several techniques were introduced in order to optimize the fabrication process of nanotips. Here, we experimentally verify the reproducibility of nanotip fabrication using the recent local electron bombardment method. Also, we investigate the field emission characteristics of such nanotips using the field emission microscope.