Tungsten microwires have been manipulated and electrically probed inside a transmission electron microscope. Using Au electrodes, the current-voltage characteristics of the W structures were extracted. These showed highly variable behaviors dependent on various factors, the most important of these being orientation and stiffness of the contact. Careful control of loading force and Au-W contact angle enabled a considerable degree of behavior tailoring from nonlinear to Ohmic responses.
(c) 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc.