Fabrication of a narrow gold wire using scanning tunneling microscopy

A new method for fabricating a narrow gold wire is presented. The resultant wire has width around 200 nm and length up to several microns. The wire is fabricated by using a tungsten tip to `pull' gold atoms from a gold thin film towards a bare silicon region. This method is believed to be based on the electro-migration effect. Moreover, the method can be used as a fabrication method for closely separated electrodes for future atomic devices because the whole process can be done in an ultra-high-vacuum (UHV) environment.