Automated pick-and-place of single nanoparticle using electrically controlled low-surface energy nanotweezer

In this work, we developed electrically controlled nanotweezers, which are capable of picking, moving, and placing a single sub-50 nm particle precisely and repeatably in ambient air. The nanotweezers are made of a fluoride polymer coated conductive atomic force microscope tip. By applying voltages on such a low surface energy tip, one can tune the binding energy between the tip and the nanoparticle up and down and consequently pick and place a nanoparticle with a high success rate (>90%). Moreover, we automated the whole pick-and-place procedure with the help of the computer vision technique, and it allows us to pattern nanoparticles into arbitrary patterns without any manual operation.