Optical Force-Induced Nanowire Cut

One-dimensional nanometer scale-sized materials, such as nanowires, nanotubes, etc., have gradually become new types of structural components, which can be integrated into micro/nano-opto-electromechanical systems. In this paper, optical forces were applied to cut nanowires precisely, which were broken with arbitrary length ratios. The optical force exerted by the optical tweezers proved to be the cause of the fracture of the high-aspect ratio nanowires, and the fracture mechanism of the nanowires was developed. Nanowires of different semiconductor materials were cut with optical tweezers in the experiments. The precise cut with optical tweezers can provide nanowires of appropriate lengths for the construction of nanowire-based structures, which have potential applications for micromachining and microfabrication of micro-electro-mechanical system or semiconductor devices.