Building and manipulating three-dimensional and linked two-dimensional structures of nanoparticles using scanning force microscopy

Manipulation of nanoparticles with the scanning force microscope (SFM) has been limited until now to clearing areas on a surface or to moving single particles sequentially to create two-dimensional patterns. The research reported here uses a previously described setup for nanomanipulation with the SFM to (i) build a simple three-dimensional pyramidal structure by pushing a nanoparticle on top of two others and (ii) rotate and translate a linked two-particle structure. The experiments are conducted in air and at room temperature with gold nanoparticles deposited on silicon previously coated with a silane layer.