Structure characterization of interior invisible single grain boundary by nanorobot pick-and-place grain in bulk ZnO under SEM

Abstract

• Invisible grain boundary is first creatively characterized using nanorobot in SEM. • Irregular shape of invisible grain boundary can be exhibited in plane X-Y. • Three-dimensional virtual reconstruction is utilized to verify irregular structure. In order to independently characterize invisible structure, a new approach is first creatively proposed to express interior invisible single grain boundary using nanorobot pick-and-place single grain in SEM. Picking of a single grain handled by single probe and then rolling-over placing manipulated by dual-probes can be sequentially conducted by nanorobot. The upper and lower invisible surface interface layer profile of single grain can be extracted by SEM imaging in plane X-Y. Experimental results demonstrate that interior invisible single grain boundary characterized by nanorobot seems to be reasonably feasible. The upper and lower surface structures of single grain in plane X-Y can also be virtually modeled by 3D software. This method can further provide a unique characterization approach of interior invisible structure of single grain boundary.