Nano-processing tool using a carbon nanotube nano-heater

Carbon nanotubes are widely used as nanoscale processing tools such as scanning probe microscope tip[ 1-31, nanotweezers [4,5] and nanoscale electron emission source. Recently, the light emission from the multiwall nanotube bundle under current flow has been reported and the origin of the light emission was concluded as the thermal radiation with temperature around -1500K [6]. In this case, however, the size of the light emission device was in the order of centimeters. Therefore, this light emission device is not applicable to the nano-processing tool. On the contrary, we have observed the light emission from a suspended individual multiwall carbon nanotube under current flow[7], whose size is around lpm. The average temperatures for the sublimation of the nanotubes have been estimated from the emission spectra to be higher than 2,5OOK[8]. Consequently, the optical and the thermal radiations from the individual suspended nanotube caused by the Joule heating can be used as novel nanoscale-processing tools. In this study, we propose a nano-processing tool using a carbon nanotube as a nano-heating source.