Nanowire bonding with the scanning tunneling microscope

We have developed a reliable lithographic method to pattern thin gold films by locally exposing a thin layer of an electron beam resist with the tip of a scanning tunneling microscope (STM). The exposure of the resist layer is induced by applying a voltage difference of ca. -10V between the STM tip and the gold film on top of which the resist layer has been deposited with the Langmuir-Blodgett technique. Our resist material is omega-tricosenoic acid which acts as a negative resist. After development, the unexposed areas of the gold film can be removed via argon ion milling. We have been able to obtain continuous gold lines having a width down to 15 nm, the linewidth being determined by the exposure dose. When reducing the tunneling voltage