Small, Minimally Invasive, Direct: Electrons Induce Local Reactions of Adsorbed Functional Molecules on the Nanoscale

Double duty: Apart from imaging and analysis purposes, modern electron microscopes can be exploited for focused electron beam induced processing (FEBIP) on the nanometer scale using adsorbed functional volatile molecules. Depending on the nature of injected molecules and substrates, the electron-impact dissociation products form solid deposits (metals, dielectrics, semiconductors, nanocomposites) or remove substrate material locally.