Synthesis of Metal-Alloy-Coated Nanowires toward Functional Scanning Probe Microscope

Using carbon nanotubes (CNTs) as templates, we have fabricated metal-alloy-coated nanowires by pulsed laser deposition. Superconducting and ferromagnetic materials were uniformly deposited around an isolated multiwalled CNT (MWNT), and reflected the shape of the MWNT. It was found that Nb3Sn and CoFe layers were deposited at a rate of about 0.13 nm/min, which indicates that their film thicknesses can be accurately controlled with nanometer accuracy. We also fabricated a superconductor-coated W tip, and obtained an scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) image of the Au(111) reconstructed surface at 2 K. These results indicate that nanowires synthesized using CNT templates can be used as materials for the tips of a functional scanning probe microscopy (SPM) which provide the nanoscale proximity of superconducting or magnetic nanowires.