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Lamin A/C is a well-established key contributor to nuclear stiffness and its role in nucleus mechanical properties has been extensively studied. However, its impact on whole cell mechanics has been poorly addressed, even less so in terms of measurable physical parameters. In the present study, microfluidic experiments combined with theoretical analyses were performed to provide a quantitative estimation of the whole cell mechanical properties. This allowed the characterization of mechanical cell changes induced by lamin A/C alterations resulting from Atazanavir treatment or lipodystrophy-associated LMNA R482W pathogenic variant. Results unveil an increase in the long-time viscosity as a signature of cells affected by lamin A/C alterations. In addition, they show that the whole cell response to mechanical stress is driven not only by the nucleus but also by the nucleo-cytoskeleton links and the microtubule network. This enhanced cell viscosity assessed by our microfluidic device could represent a useful diagnosis marker for lamin-related diseases.

Single-molecule localization microscopies have gained much attention for their efficient realization of a sub-diffraction-limit imaging with the resolution down to the 10-nm range. In contrast to conventional localization microscopes, which rely on particular fluorescent probes in specific conditions, metamaterial-assisted super-resolution microscopies can be implemented with any fluorescent dye under general conditions. Here, we present a systematic study of fluorescence engineering in metamaterial assisted localization microscopy by using cyclic group metasurfaces coated with a fluorescent film. Tailored variations are clearly demonstrated in both the photoluminescence intensity and the photobleaching lifetime of fluorophores based on the spatially varied Purcell effect near the metasurfaces. The enhanced emissions and blinking dynamics of the fluorophores on these metasurfaces lead to an increased signal-to-noise ratio, and therefore give rise to a super-resolution localization image with 0.9-nm localization accuracy. Our results are not only beneficial for super-resolution localization imaging but also push the control of light–matter interactions beyond the diffraction limit.

International audience; Protein patterning has emerged as a powerful means to interrogate adhering cells. However, the tools to apply a sub-micrometer periodic stimulus and the analysis of the response are still being standardized. We propose a technique combining electron beam lithography and surface functionalization to fabricate nanopatterns compatible with advanced imaging. The repetitive pattern enables a deep-learning algorithm to reveal that T cells organize their membrane and actin network differently depending upon whether the ligands are clustered or homogeneously distributed, an effect invisible to the unassisted human eye even after extensive image analysis. This fabrication and analysis toolbox should be useful, both together and separately, for exploring general correlation between a spatially structured subcellular stimulation and a subtle cellular response.

International audience; We used indirect nanoplasmonic sensing (INPS) coupled with mass spectrometry to study CO and oxygen adsorption as well as CO oxidation, on Pt nanoparticles, in the Torr pressure range. Due to an optimization of the physical parameters of our plasmonic sample, we obtain a highly sensitive probe that can detect gas adsorption of a few hundredths of a monolayer, even with a very low number density of Pt particles. Moreover and for the first time, a similarity is observed between the sign and the evolution of the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) peak shift and the work function measurements for CO and oxygen chemisorption. Controlling the size, shape, and surface density of Pt particles, the turnover frequency (TOF) has also been accurately determined. For similar experimental conditions, the TOF is close to those measured on Pt/oxide powder catalysts and Pt(100) single crystals.

Enhanced second-harmonic generation in a single MoS2 nanodisk due to the overlap of Mie resonances at the fundamental wavelength with the C-exciton resonance at the second-harmonic wavelength is observed.

We used indirect nanoplasmonic sensing (INPS) coupled with mass spectrometry to study CO and oxygen adsorption as well as CO oxidation, on Pt nanoparticles, in the Torr pressure range. Due to an optimization of the physical parameters of our plasmonic sample, we obtain a highly sensitive probe that can detect gas adsorption of a few hundredths of a monolayer, even with a very low number density of Pt particles. Moreover and for the first time, a similarity is observed between the sign and the evolution of the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) peak shift and the work function measurements for CO and oxygen chemisorption. Controlling the size, shape, and surface density of Pt particles, the turnover frequency (TOF) has also been accurately determined. For similar experimental conditions, the TOF is close to those measured on Pt/oxide powder catalysts and Pt(100) single crystals.

Understanding how animals respond to injury and how wounds heal remains a challenge. These questions can be addressed using genetically tractable animals, including the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. Given its small size, the current methods for inflicting wounds in a controlled manner are demanding. To facilitate and accelerate the procedure, we fabricated regular arrays of pyramidal features ("pins”) sharp enough to pierce the tough nematode cuticle. The pyramids were made from monocrystalline silicon wafers that were micro-structured using optical lithography and alkaline wet etching. The fabrication protocol and the geometry of the pins, determined by electron microscopy, are described in detail. We also used electron microscopy to characterize the different types of injury caused by these pins. Upon wounding, C. elegans expresses genes encoding antimicrobial peptides. A comparison of the induction of antimicrobial peptide gene expression using traditional needles and the pin arrays demonstrates the utility of this new method.

International audience; Cross-polarization scattering of a circularly polarized beam from nano-rod introduces a geometric phase to the outgoing beam with opposite circular polarization. By manipulating the spatial array of subwavelength nano-structure constituting metasurface, the geometric phase can be engineered to generate a variety of beam profiles, including vortex beam carrying orbital angular momentum via a process called spin-to-orbital angular momentum conversion. Here we introduce a cyclic group symmetric metasurface composed of tapered arc nano-rods and explore how azimuthal angular distribution of total phase determines the feature of spin-dependent beam separation. When scattered from a circular array of tapered arc nano-rods possessing varying width with a fixed length, a dynamical phase having non-constant azimuthal gradient is introduced to an incoming Gaussian beam. This leads to a spin-dependent beam separation in the outgoing vortex beam profile, which is attributed to an azimuthal angle dependent destructive interference between scatterings from two plasmonic excitations along the width and the length of tapered arc nano-rod. Relation of cyclic group symmetry property of metasurface and the generated vortex beam profile is examined in detail by experimental measurement and analysis in terms of partial-wave expansion and non-constant azimuthal gradient of total phase. Capability of spatial beam profiling by spin-dependent beam separation in vortex beam generation has an important implication for spatial demultiplexing in optical communication utilizing optical angular momentum mode division multiplexing as well as for optical vortex tweezers and optical signal processing employing vortex beams. Novelty and impact statement Vortex beam generation by geometric phase is known. However, a systematic study of relating symmetry property of cyclic group C_nh and vortex beam profile is never reported. This work shows that non-constant azimuthal gradient of total phase is the key in controlling azimuthal interference pattern of vortex beam with asymmetric helical wavefront. Noting the importance of vortex beam communications, this work opens a novel way to manipulate interplay between spin-and orbital angular momentum for vortex beam profiling.

International audience; Frequency conversion is one of the main applications of nonlinear optical processes in which a signal is produced at a different wavelength from the excitation wavelength. In particular, four-wave mixing (FWM) is a third order nonlinear optical process that allows, for instance, the generation of visible frequencies by tuning near-infrared laser pumps. Here, in order to augment the very weak FWM conversion efficiency, we design silicon Mie resonators that exhibit two resonances of the internal electric field intensity around the frequency range of the laser pumps. The linear extinction spectrum of the individual Si resonator is first measured by bright field spectroscopy and compared with numerical simulations to confirm the existence of the two resonances corresponding to electric and magnetic dipole excitations. The FWM signal is then measured for a single Si nanoresonator when the first pump is set to the electric resonance while tuning the frequency of the second pump across the magnetic dipolar resonance. We show that the FWM signal generated in the visible spectrum is maximum when the frequency of the tunable pump corresponds to the maximum of the internal electric field intensity. At this position, the FWM signal is enhanced by more than 2 orders of magnitude compared with the FWM signal generated by the unpatterned silicon film.

International audience; We demonstrate in this work that using nanoplasmonic sensing it is possible to follow the adsorption/desorption of water molecules on gold nanodisks nanofabricated by electron beam lithography. This quantitative method is highly sensitive allowing the detection of a few hundredths of adsorbed monolayer. Disk parameters (height, diameter, inter-disk distance) have been optimized after finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulations in order to obtain the best localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) signal-to-noise ratio. Finally, we have precisely measured the adsorption kinetics of water on gold as a function of the relative humidity of the surrounding medium.

International audience; Nanoparticles delivering drugs, disseminating cancer cells, and red blood cells (RBCs) during splenic filtration must deform and pass through the sub-micrometer and high aspect ratio interstices between the endothelial cells lining blood vessels. The dynamics of passage of particles/cells through these slit-like interstices remain poorly understood because the in vitro reproduction of slits with physiological dimensions in devices compatible with optical microscopy observations requires expensive technologies. Here, novel microfluidic PDMS devices containing high aspect ratio slits with sub-micrometer width are molded on silicon masters using a simple, inexpensive, and highly flexible method combining standard UV lithography and anisotropic wet etching. These devices enabled revealing novel modes of deformations of healthy and diseased RBCs squeezing through splenic-like slits (0.6–2 × 5–10 × 1.6–11 µm3) under physiological interstitial pressures. At the slit exit, the cytoskeleton of spherocytic RBCs seemed to be detached from the lipid membrane whereas RBCs from healthy donors and patients with sickle cell disease exhibited peculiar tips at their front. These tips disappeared much slower in patients' cells, allowing estimating a threefold increase in RBC cytoplasmic viscosity in sickle cell disease. Measurements of time and rate of RBC sequestration in the slits allowed quantifying the massive trapping of spherocytic RBCs.

International audience; "Condition of excitation and sensitivity of diffractively-coupled surface lattice resonances over plasmonic nanoparticle arrays in ATR geometry ," Proc. ABSTRACT We investigate conditions of excitation and properties of Plasmonic Surface Lattice Resonances (PSLR) over glass substrate-supported Au nanoparticle dimers (~100-200 nm) arranged in a periodic metamaterial lattice, in Attenuated Total Reflection (ATR) optical excitation geometry, and assess their sensitivities to variations of refractive index (RI) of the adjacent sample dielectric medium. We show that spectral sensitivity of PSLR to RI variations is determined by the lattice periodicity (~ 320 nm per RIU change in our case), while ultranarrow resonance lineshapes (down to a few nm full-width-at-half-maximum) provide very high figure-of-merit values evidencing the possibility of ultrasensitive biosensing measurements. Combining advantages of nanoscale architectures, including a strong concentration of electric field, the possibility of manipulation at the nanoscale etc, and high phase and spectral sensitivities, PSLRs promise a drastic advancement of current state-of-the-art plasmonic biosensing technology. Keywords: plasmonic metamaterials for biosensing plasmonic surface lattice resonances, diffractive coupling, attenuated total reflection, plasmonic biosensing, improvement of sensitivity.

International audience; When excited over a periodic metamaterial lattice of gold nanoparticles (~ 100 nm), localized plasmon resonances (LPR) can be coupled by a diffraction wave propagating along the array plane, which leads to a drastic narrowing of plasmon resonance lineshapes (down to a few nm full-width-at-half-maximum) and the generation of singularities of phase of reflected light. These phenomena look very promising for the improvement of performance of plasmonic biosensors, but conditions of implementation of such diffractively coupled plasmonic resonances, also referred to as plasmonic surface lattice resonances (PSLR), are not always compatible with biosensing arrangement implying the placement of the nanoparticles between a glass substrate and a sample medium (air, water). Here, we consider conditions of excitation and properties of PSLR over arrays of glass substrate-supported single and double Au nanoparticles (~100–200 nm), arranged in a periodic metamaterial lattice, in direct and Attenuated Total Reflection (ATR) geometries, and assess their sensitivities to variations of refractive index (RI) of the adjacent sample dielectric medium. First, we identify medium (PSLRair, PSLRwat for air and water, respectively) and substrate (PSLRsub) modes corresponding to the coupling of individual plasmon oscillations at medium- and substrate-related diffraction cut-off edges. We show that spectral sensitivity of medium modes to RI variations is determined by the lattice periodicity in both direct and ATR geometries (~ 320 nm per RIU change in our case), while substrate mode demonstrates much lower sensitivity. We also show that phase sensitivity of PSLR can exceed 105 degrees of phase shift per RIU change and thus outperform the relevant parameter for all other plasmonic sensor counterparts. We finally demonstrate the applicability of surface lattice resonances in plasmonic metamaterial arrays to biosensing using standard streptavidin-biotin affinity model. Combining advantages of nanoscale architectures, including drastic concentration of electric field, possibility of manipulation at the nanoscale etc, and high phase and spectral sensitivities, PSLRs promise the advancement of current state-of-the-art plasmonic biosensing technology toward single molecule label-free detection.

International audience; We demonstrate in this work that the indirect nanoplasmonic sensing lets us follow the adsorption/desorption of water molecules on soot particles that are a major contributor of the global warming. Increasing the relative humidity of the surrounding medium we measure a shift in wavelength of the localized surface plasmon resonance response of gold nanodisks on which soot particles are deposited. We show a singular and reversible blue shift with hydrophilic aircraft soot particles interpreted from a basic model as a reversible morphological change of the soot aggregates. This new method is highly sensitive and interesting to follow the change of optical properties of aerosols during their aging in the atmosphere, where they can adsorb and react with different gas molecules.

We present the design of infrared filters for multispectral imaging applications, based on square annular aperture arrays in a thin gold film. These structures function as band pass filters with large bandwidth and high transmission at resonance. A modal analysis based on the Finite Element Method (FEM) is performed to obtain quickly the features of this resonance. The center wavelength can be tuned in the 7–12 μm range while keeping constant the quality factor and maximum transmission by scaling all transverse dimensions of the apertures, which allows to obtain filters with different centering on the same substrate in a single fabrication step. Large area samples have been fabricated on a silicon wafer by electronic lithography. Spectrophotometric measurements are in rather good agreement with numerical predictions. In addition, angle resolved measurements show that the filters are quite tolerant to the incidence angle up to 30° for both polarizations which is consistent with our FEM simulations. Finally, a complete sensitivity analysis allows us to evaluate acceptable opto-geometric tolerances of fabrication and thus to improve reproducibility on large areas. The impact of fabrication defaults (rounded corners, aperture anisotropy, aperture edge roughness, sloping aperture edges) on the filtering performances is analyzed. The simulations of realistic structures allow to explain and reduce the differences between measured and simulated spectra.

International audience; Red Blood Cells (RBCs) are periodically monitored for changes in their deformability by the spleen, and are entrapped and destroyed if unable to pass through the splenic interendothelial slits (IESs). In particular, in sickle cell disease (SCD), where hemoglobin form fibers inside the RBCs, and in hereditary spherocytosis (HS), where RBCs are more spherical and membrane-cytoskekeleton bonds are weakened, the loss of RBC deformability leads to spleen dysfunction. By combining photolithography and anisotropic wet etching techniques, we developed a new on-chip PDMS device with channels replicating the submicronic physiological dimensions of IESs to study the mechanisms of deformation of the RBCs during their passage through these biomimetic slits. For the first time, with HS RBCs, we show the disruption of the links between the RBC membrane and the underlying spectrin network. In the case of SCD RBCs we show the appearance of a tip at the front of the RBC with a longer time relaxation due to the increased cytoplasmic viscosity.This work has been carried out thanks to the support of the A*MIDEX project (n° ANR-11-IDEX-0001-02) funded by the «Investissements d'Avenir». French Government program, managed by ANR.

We designed and fabricated cyclic group symmetric metamaterials (CGSMs), anisotropic media showing an extrinsic optical orbital Hall effect. An exchange of angular momentum between spin and orbital angular momenta takes place in an optical beam propagating through anisotropic media such as plasmonic nanoantennas of concentric ring and tapered arc (TA) shape. In case of TA antenna an cross-polarized circular polarization scattered beam exhibits an extrinsic orbital Hall effect. The CGSMs possess n-fold rotation symmetry and they are composed of plasmonic TA antennas. In case of circular polarization, the TA antennas effectively scatter incident light depending on the beam helicity. Both amplitude and phase gradients take place along the azimuthal direction for cross-polarized beams. We used electron beam lithography to fabricate 30nm thick gold metamaterials patterned on borosilicate glass substrates. Six types of CGSMs with the symmetry order n from 1 to 6 were fabricated and measured. Each CSGM is composed of multiple TA antennas with the width varying from 45nm to 150nm organized in 8*n azimuthal segments of concentric rings repeated with 600nm radial spacing. Measurements of orbital Hall transverse shifts of circularly polarized beams of right/left helicity were carried out at a wavelength of 1300nm. Because TA antennas are arranged in a metamaterial with a cyclic group n-fold rotation symmetry, the extrinsic orbital Hall transverse shifts from CGSM exhibit a geometrical pattern with the same symmetry. However, CGSMs with odd and even symmetry orders show a strongly contrasting difference in the character of transverse shifts. The observed geometrical patterns agree well with those obtained from FDTD theoretical simulation.

International audience; Plasmonic antennas have a profound impact on nanophotonics as they provide efficient means to manipulate light and enhance light–matter interactions at the nanoscale. However, the large absorption losses found in metals can severely limit the plasmonic applications in the visible spectral range. Here, we demonstrate the effectiveness of an alternative approach using all-dielectric nanoantennas based on silicon dimers to enhance the fluorescence detection of single molecules. The silicon antenna design is optimized to confine the near-field intensity in the 20 nm nanogap and reach a 270-fold fluorescence enhancement in a nanoscale volume of λ3/1800 with dielectric materials only. Our conclusions are assessed by combining polarization resolved optical spectroscopy of individual antennas, scanning electron microscopy, numerical simulations, fluorescence lifetime measurements, fluorescence burst analysis, and fluorescence correlation spectroscopy. This work demonstrates that all-silicon nanoantennas are a valid alternative to plasmonic devices for enhanced single molecule fluorescence sensing, with the additional key advantages of reduced nonradiative quenching, negligible heat generation, cost-efficiency, and complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) compatibility.

International audience; The photonic resonances hosted by nanostructures provide vivid colors that can be used as color filters instead of organic colors and pigments in photodetectors and printing technology. Metallic nanostructures have been widely studied due to their ability to sustain surface plasmons that resonantly interact with light. Most of the metallic nanoparticles behave as point-like electric multipoles. However, the needs of an another degree of freedom to tune the color of the photonic nanostructure together with the use of a reliable and cost-effective material are growing. Here, we report a technique to imprint colored images based on silicon nanoparticles that host low-order electric and magnetic Mie resonances. The interplay between the electric and magnetic resonances leads to a large palette of colors. This all-dielectric fabrication technique offers the advantage to use cost-effective, reliable, and sustainable materials to provide vivid color spanning the whole visible spectrum. The interest and potential of this all-dielectric printing technique are highlighted by reproducing at a micrometer scale a Mondrian painting.

This article reports the monitoring of reversible displacement of a gallium droplet on a tungsten submicron wire deposited by focused ion beam from tungsten hexacarbonyl precursor. The authors demonstrate that by applying a voltage to the wire terminals, the internal electric field created along the wire produces the motion of the droplet. Since the matter involved in this displacement is conductive, the authors show that it is possible to build a submicron electrical switch. Contact can be switched on and off between two electrodes separated by a submicron gap, by electrical monitoring the position of the conductive droplet. In nanoscience, connections of nano-objects are needed to demonstrate the peculiar electrical properties of such objects. A lot of studies have been devoted to direct writing of high quality metallic wires by local decomposition of gaseous molecules induced by tightly focused ion or electron beams. 1–4 These techniques are particularly suitable to link the micron world optical lithography to the nanoworld. Cross beam systems coupling a focused ion beam FIB and a scanning electron microscope SEM equipped with a gas injection system have been widely used in microelectronic industry for integrated circuit rewiring at the submicron scale. The deposited materials are often contaminated by C and O coming from the decomposition of the ligands of the precursor molecules, usually organometallic or metal organic molecules. Furthermore, extra contamination of the deposited wires occurs by implantation of gallium atoms coming from the Ga + ion beam itself. Consequently, the metal wire resistivity is usually up to 100 times higher than the bulk one. Tungsten nanowires 200 nm wide by 80 nm thick have been fabricated by a focused ion beam induced deposition process 5,6 FIBID from the dissociation of WC0 6 molecules and studied in our cross beam system equipped with in situ electrical measurements. A current density above a threshold value 5,6 of 1.4 10 7 A / cm 2 induces a wire annealing by Joule effect which improves their electrical conductivity. The high current density induces the exudation of gallium out of the wire and its merging as several droplets Fig. 1. The exudation of gallium is closely related to the light 3% decrease of the wire resistance between 1.1 and 4 V Fig. 1. Droplet formation along the wire takes place when the voltage reaches about 2.5 V. This value increases with the initial value of the resistance of the wire to get the current density threshold required. Increasing the voltage up to 4 V drives all the droplets toward the lowest potential electrode, leading to the formation of a unique droplet of about 550 nm in diameter SEM image inserted in Fig. 1. For a voltage above 4 V, the resistance of the wire drops due to the nonreversible crys-tallization of the tungsten wire. 5,6 The value of the resistance after the first ramping can be ten times less than the value of the resistance of the as-deposited wire. The droplet contains about 90 at. % of gallium atoms and 10 at. % of oxygen atoms as observed by ex situ energy dispersive x-ray analysis. Most of the oxygen contained in the droplet is a consequence of the sample transfer through air from one SEM to the other. A gallium droplet, which has been formed at one extremity of a wire, as explained previously, 5,6 migrates toward the opposite terminal if the voltage is reversed. The droplet is always driven toward the lowest potential electrode when the voltage applied 2.5 V induces a current density of about 1.4 10 7 A / cm 2 through the tungsten wire. Droplet position change was followed in situ by SEM. Figure 2 displays three images grabbed from a SEM video, separated in time by 0.6 s between Figs. 2a and 2b and 0.4 s between Figs. 2b and 2c. We started with one drop-let nearby the left electrode and slowly increased the voltage. One can see that the left droplet diameter decreases slightly while the right one increases. It demonstrates that the gal-lium transfer occurs from the left electrode to the right one by changing the polarity of the voltage between the two electrodes. During the transfer, the W wire remains unchanged between the initial and final states. It should be stressed that instead of moving at once from one point of the wire to the other, the droplet diameter decreases while simultaneously a Electronic

Chemical etching via alkaline solutions is associated with electronic lithography to structure at a nanometer scale silicon Mie resonators. Two different alkaline solutions are employed and their infl uences on the shape of the resonators are discussed. The method is applied on both amorphous and crystalline silicon coatings and silicon resonators are characterized by electron microscopy and optical spectroscopy, and then the different modes are identifi ed thanks to numerical simulations. This method avoids the use of reactive ion etching and appears to be very well adapted to design silicon particles at a nanometer scale for applications in nanophotonics.

Field effect transistors have risen as one of the most promising techniques in the development of biomedical diagnosis and monitoring. In such devices, the sensitivity and specificity of the sensor rely on the properties of the active sensing layer (gate dielectric and probe layer). We propose here a new type of transistor developed for the detection of Fe(3+) ions in which this sensing layer is made of a monolayer of lipids, engineered in such a way that it is not sensitive to pH in the acidic range, therefore making the device perfectly suitable for biomedical diagnosis. Probes are γ-pyrone derivatives that have been grafted to the lipid headgroups. Affinity constants derived for the chelator/Fe(3+) complexation as well as for other ions demonstrate very high sensitivity and specificity towards ferric ions with values as high as 5.10(10) M and a detected concentration as low as 50 fM.

The diffractive behavior of arrays of square coaxial apertures in a gold layer is studied. These structures exhibit a resonant transmission enhancement that is used to design tunable bandpass filters for multispectral imaging in the 7–13 μm wavelength range. A modal analysis is used for this design and the study of their spectral features. Thus we show that the resonance peak is due to the excitation of leaky modes of the open photonic structure. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectrophotometry transmission measurements of samples deposited on Si substrate show good agreement with numerical results and demonstrate angular tolerance of up to 30 degrees of the fabricated filters.

In this work, we investigate localized silicon nanowires synthesis in a room temperature-controlled silane filled chamber using submicronic resistors as heating devices. These resistors consist in circuit-connected W wires obtained, on silicon oxide substrates, by focused ion beam induced deposition (FIBID) technology. Our study demonstrates that the morphology of the synthesized nanowires is temperature and time dependent revealing a thermal gradient but also both vapor-liquid-solid and vapor-solid growth effects. Typical silicon nanowires dimensions are a length of 1–2 μm and diameters of 30–40 nm. Structural characterization is performed by high resolution transmission electron microscopy using high energy electron transparent self-supported silicon nitride membranes. Electrical characteristics of FIBID- and self-connected nanowires are obtained. In both cases, they exhibit rectifying behavior.

In this work, we present the elaboration and the electrical characterisation of undoped silicon nanowires (SiNWs) which are grown via vapour–liquid–solid mechanism using Au nucleation catalyst and SiH 4 as the silicon source. The nanowires were investigated by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy. An electrical test structure was realized by a dispersion of the nanowires on SiO 2 /Si substrate with photolithography pre-patterned Au/Ti microelectrodes. The connexion is made on a single nanowire using a cross beam plate form allowing scanning electron microscopy imaging and the deposition of tungsten wiring by focussed ion beam deposition. The current–voltage characteristics of the nanowires are linear which indicates an ohmic contact between tungsten allow and SiNWs. The total resistance of the nanowires increases from 135 MΩ to 5 GΩ when the diameter decreases from 190 to 130 nm. This effect is may be due to the reduction of the conductive inner volume of the nanowires and to charged defects at the Si–SiO 2 interface if we assume that the contact resistance is constant. Moreover, gate-dependent current versus bias voltage measurement show that the nanowires exhibit a field effect response characteristic of a p-type semiconductor.

We present a method allowing us to obtain localized heating that is compatible with high-temperature operation and real time scanning and transmission electron microscopy. Localized heating is induced by flowing current through tungsten nanowires deposited by focused ion-beam-induced deposition on a 50-nm-thick Si(3)N(4) membrane. Based on the heat transport between the nanowire and the substrate, we applied an analytical model to obtain the temperature profile as a function of electrical power. In this model, the key parameter is the thermal resistance between the nanowire and the substrate that we determined experimentally by measuring electrical power and local temperature. The local temperature is measured by observing the evaporation of gold nanoparticle by electron microscopy. These in situ heating and temperature-probing capabilities are used to study the crystallization of the Si(3)N(4) membrane and the growth of silicon nanowires.

Conductive nanowires were deposited by a focused gallium ion beam using W(CO)6 and (CH3)3CH3C5H4Pt as precursors. An in situ electrical treatment can substantially modify the structure and resistivity of these nanowires. This treatment consists in applying voltage ramps to the wire, leading to a high current density that induces wire annealing. The nanowires are deposited by focused ion-beam-induced deposition on two kinds of customized supports based on diamondlike carbon or Si3N4 membranes, particularly suitable for electrical tests and transmission electron microscopy characterization. In the case of tungsten wires, the treatment induces an improvement of the resistivity due to both gallium contamination removal and wire crystallization, which occurs at high temperature. The treatment leads to low-resistivity (50μΩcm) polycrystalline tungsten nanowires. For platinum wires, the treatment induces an increase of resistivity. In fact, this treated wire was composed of conductive droplets (platinum and PtGa...

International audience; We studied the behavior of tungsten wires, fabricated by focused-ion-beam-induced deposition and subjected to high current density. We present a simple electrical treatment, which allows an improved wire resistivity of more than 80%. We have distinguished two steps in the treatment. When the current density reaches 1.4x107 A/cm2, Ga atoms segregate and form droplets on the wire. As the current density increases, new droplets appear and merge into a single droplet. At 5.8x107 A/cm2, the droplet evaporates, the resistance is lost and the wire crystallizes. The final resistivity is close to 55 µV cm. The same treatment applied to as-deposited platinum wires does not lead to the same observations: neither segregation nor crystallization was found.

International audience; In this contribution, we present characterizations of tungsten wires and silicon oxide layers elaborated by focused ion beam induced deposition (FIBID). The deposits are performed in a cross-beam station equipped with a three channel gas injection system. Tungsten wires have been deposited from tungsten hexacarbonyl precursor. We have studied their electrical properties in situ by following the evolution of the wire resistance during the deposition process. Thesesubmicronic wires display an ohmic behaviour, a low resistivity (only 20 times higher than the bulk) and a good stability. As for insulator deposition, silicon oxide films from dissociation of penta methyl cyclo penta siloxane (PMCPS) precursor have been patterned. We present our results concerning electrical and chemical analyses carried out on test structure entirely elaborated by FIBID.