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O: Fachverband Oberflächenphysik

O 23: [DS] Focused electron beam induced processing for the fabrication of nanostructures II (focused session, jointly with O – Organizers: Huth, Marbach)

O 23.2: Topical Talk

Dienstag, 27. März 2012, 10:00–10:30, H 0111

From electronic correlations to strain sensing: Nanongranular metals and their applications — •Christian Schwalb, Marcel Winhold, Fabrizio Porrati, Roland Sachser, and Michael Huth — Physikalisches Institut, Goethe-Universität, Max-von-Laue-Str.1, 60438 Frankfurt am Main

Granular metals are artificial materials that consist of a conducting phase of metallic nanoparticles embedded in a carbon-rich dielectric matrix. The charge transport in such systems is dominated by tunneling between neighboring metallic nanoparticles, a process that is strongly influenced by correlation effects, such as the Coulomb blockade in the limit of weak inter-grain coupling. Additionally the tunneling coupling in these materials has an intrinsically exponential dependence on the inter-grain distance.

In this work, we present a practical application for these fundamental processes. Using focused electron-beam-induced deposition (FEBID) we can create strain-sensing elements based on nanogranular metals. The gauge factor for these sensing elements depends on their conductivity that can be altered by electron-beam irradiation leading to a change in the sensitivity that can be attributed to a persistent change of the dielectric carbon matrix. Due to the high resolution of the FEBID process strain-sensing elements with dimensions below 20 nm are feasible, therefore enabling, e.g., the fabrication of nano-cantilevers for ultra-fast AFM applications.