Manipulation Technique for Precise Transfer of Single Perovskite Nanoparticles.

Filipp Komissarenko,Ivan Mukhin,George Zograf,Sergey Makarov,Mikhail Petrov

doi:10.3390/nano10071306

Abstract

In this article, we present the pick-and-place technique for the manipulation of single nanoparticles on non-conductive substrates using a tungsten tip irradiated by a focused electron beam from a scanning electron microscope. The developed technique allowed us to perform the precise transfer of single BaTiO3 nanoparticles from one substrate to another in order to carry out measurements of elastic light scattering as well as second harmonic generation. Also, we demonstrate a fabricated structure made by finely tuning the position of a BaTiO3 nanoparticle on top of a dielectric nanowaveguide deposited on a glass substrate. The presented technique is based on the electrostatic interaction between the sharp tungsten tip charged by the electron beam and the nanoscale object. A mechanism for nanoparticle transfer to a non-conductive substrate is proposed and the forces involved in the manipulation process are evaluated. The presented technique can be widely utilized for the fabrication of nanoscale structures on optically transparent non-conductive substrates, which presents a wide range of applications for nanophotonics.

Highlights

For the last decade, studies concerning nonlinear optical properties of non-plasmonic structures are of great interest for researchers due to the active development of nanophotonics associated with the use of dielectric materials
The tip will be charged by the electron beam until the field emission current is equal to the microscope’s beam current
Integrating of the Fowler–Northheim equation [39], which relates the value of electrostatic field intensity to the field emission current density through the material’s work function, one can find the value of the net charge, which creates a field with the maximum intensity Emax near the tip within certain geometrical parameters

Summary

Introduction

Studies concerning nonlinear optical properties of non-plasmonic structures are of great interest for researchers due to the active development of nanophotonics associated with the use of dielectric materials (all-dielectric photonics). BTO nanostructures and especially single BTO nanoparticles, due to supporting Mie resonances in the visible range, are of great interest to second harmonic generation (SHG) studies [8,9,10,11,12]. For the study of single BTO nanoparticles, as well as for the fabrication of complex nanostructures based on them, the use of nanomanipulation methods can be in high demand as such methods can be used to successfully tackle the problems of studying a specific pre-selected object, distributing objects on a pre-patterned substrate in a certain way, transferring objects from the initial substrate to the auxiliary substrate at a predefined position, and forming assemblies from various objects. The fact that the dielectric constant of the substrate on which the dielectric nanoparticle is located can affect its optical properties [13,14] makes methods that allow manipulating nanoparticles on non-conductive substrates especially in demand

Methods

Results

Conclusion