Carbon nanowires made on diamond surface by focused ion beam

Conductive carbon nanowires were made on the polished surface of a single crystal CVD diamond by 30 keV Ga+ ion beam focused to 20 nm. Measurements of conductance of the as‐irradiated nanowires and those annealed at temperature 1400 °C revealed the onset of the ion‐induced conductance to be of 2 × 1015 cm–2. Short nanowires (sub‐micron length) irradiated with subthreshold doses from 5 × 1014 cm–2 to 3 × 1015 cm–2 exhibited unusually high conductivity of 105 Ω–1 cm–1 well exceeding the conductivity of bulk graphite and comparable with that of metals. Tentative explanation of the effect is formation of chains of highly conductive carbon nanorods along 〈100〉 direction in diamond lattice. (© 2005 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)