Live imaging of electromigration

People Involved

Thiti Taychatanapat, Kirill Bolotin, Ferdinand Kuemmeth

Summary

In order to obtain better control over the properties of junctions, we have developed a technique to image the process of electromigration live in the SEM chamber.

The voltage across the junction is ramped up slowly until the junction fails, producing a nanometer-size gap. Frames below illustrate the breaking process at different times. You can view the entire clip (4.4 MB).

We have also imaged electromigration of gold wires under a variety of different conditions. You can view the clips here:

• movie01a.mpeg -- Wire: simple voltage ramp, no added series resistance. (1.1 MB)
• movie01b.mpeg -- Bowtie: simple voltage ramp, no added series resistance. (0.9 MB)
• movie02a.mpeg -- Wire: active feedback, no added series resistance. (4.0 MB)
• movie02b.mpeg -- Bowtie: active feedback, no added series resistance. (3.5 MB)
• movie03.mpeg -- simple voltage ramp, 1 kΩ series resistance. (1.2 MB)
• movie04.mpeg -- active feedback, 2 kΩ series resistance. (4.5 MB)
• movie05.mpeg -- simple voltage ramp, ~15nm Au nanoparticles assembled with APTS, no added series resistance. (2.0 MB)
• movie06.mpeg -- simple voltage ramp, ~15nm Au nanoparticles assembled with APTS + dodecanethiol, no added series resistance. (1.2 MB)