Nano-processing using carbon nano tube probes and its device applications

The new advanced technology which can grow the single wall carbon nanotube directly to the silicon tip is applied in the following three nano-electron devices. 1) The single wall carbon nanotube was used as a sharp AFM cantilever to improve the resolution of AFM image. The surface of gold(Au) and its cross section on the silicon substrate were observed using the carbon nanotube AFM cantilever and conventional AFM cantilever. 2) The single wall carbon nanotube with a diameter of 1/spl sim/2nm was used as a sharp AFM cantilever and anodized the surface of the titanium (Ti) to form the narrow oxidized titanium (TiOx) tunnel junction of /spl sim/5nm for the room temperature planar type single electron transistor(SET). The fabricated SET shows the room temperature Coulomb diamond. 3) The single wall carbon nanotube was used as an ultra-sharp field emitter. The emitter has 10 to 20 times smaller diameter than the conventional silicon field emitter formed by the selective etching. The threshold voltage of the field emission for the carbon nanotube field emitter becomes as small as 10V which is 10/spl sim/50 times smaller than the conventional silicon tip field emitter because of the smaller diameter of the carbon nanotube emitter.