Eur. Phys. J. Appl. Phys. (2014) 66: 10401
https://doi.org/10.1051/epjap/2014130523

Engineering of Bi₂Se₃ nanowires by laser cutting

¹ Department of Physics, Clarendon Laboratory, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3PU, UK
² Institut für Experimentalphysik, Freie Universität Berlin, Arnimallee 14, 14195 Berlin, Germany
³ Research Complex at Harwell, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Didcot, Oxfordshire OX11 0FA, UK

^a e-mail: thorsten.hesjedal@physics.ox.ac.uk

Received: 18 November 2013
Revised: 4 March 2014
Accepted: 11 March 2014
Published online: 1 April 2014

Abstract

We present a method to control the length and diameter of Bi₂Se₃ nanowires through laser-cutting. Nanowires of the topologically insulating and thermoelectric material Bi₂Se₃ were grown using the vapor-liquid-solid method, and cut using a 532-nm-laser operating at a minimum power of 1 μW. The cutting process can be controlled through laser intensity and exposure time, and is based upon evaporation of Se from the nanowires. This method has many applications from pure research to device engineering.