The vacuum chamber of a scanning electron microscope (SEM) is large enough to host nanorobotic manipulators, so individual nanostructures can be manipulated, mechanically probed, electrically measured, and fabricated by electron beam while being imaged in real time — a capability developed since the first hybrid SEM/TEM nanomanipulation systems around 2004. In practice these operations remain slow, largely teleoperated or semi-automated, and unreliable. The open problem is to make in-situ SEM nanomanipulation a reliable and quantitative instrument capability. This comprises three linked goals that jointly serve one objective: (1) closed-loop, operator-independent robotic probing and manipulation robust to the degraded imaging conditions imposed by beam-sensitive specimens (noise, drift, charging-induced shifts, electrostatic discharge at contact); (2) a quantitative, predictive understanding of the nanoscale contact interactions — adhesion, static and kinetic friction, and electrostatic forces including electron-beam-induced charging — that govern probe–object–substrate contacts during manipulation; and (3) single-instrument integration of mechanical manipulation with electrical measurement and in-chamber fabrication such as electron-beam-induced deposition. Field reviews through 2025 still describe autonomy, environmental stochasticity, and scalability in nanomanipulation as unresolved, so the problem is open.

Background

A scanning electron microscope (SEM) images a sample by raster-scanning a focused electron beam over it and collecting secondary electrons; it offers real-time imaging with nanometer resolution and, importantly for this problem, a much larger specimen chamber than a transmission electron microscope (TEM). Because of that chamber, several robotic manipulators — typically piezoelectric stick-slip nanopositioners carrying sharp tungsten probes, grippers, or microfabricated tools — can be mounted around the sample, enabling 'in-situ' (inside-the-instrument) experiments in which the same nanostructure is imaged, moved, deformed, electrically contacted, and modified while under observation. This underpins applications from nanomaterials structure–property measurement to prototyping of nanodevices and nanoprobing of integrated circuits for semiconductor failure analysis.

Three physical and technical circumstances make such operations hard, and they define the content of the open problem.

First, at the nanoscale the forces that dominate a manipulation contact are not gravity but surface forces: van der Waals adhesion (attraction between fluctuating dipoles of contacting bodies), electrostatic forces, and contact friction. Whether a nano-object can be picked up from a substrate, slid, released onto a probe, or welded to an electrode is decided by the balance of these forces between probe, object, and substrate. Inside an SEM these forces are further modified by the electron beam itself, which charges insulating or poorly grounded objects, changes their adhesion, and deposits carbonaceous contamination; conversely, deliberately injected precursor gas lets the beam weld or grow material by electron-beam-induced deposition (EBID). Predicting and controlling this force balance — the tribology of nanoscale contacts during in-microscope manipulation — is largely empirical today: manipulation-based tribometry (e.g., dragging a nanowire with a probe and inferring static and kinetic friction from its bent profile) has been demonstrated for metal nanoparticles and oxide nanowires, but a validated, predictive account of adhesion, friction, and beam-induced charging for arbitrary probe–object–substrate combinations does not exist.

Second, the imaging that guides manipulation is intrinsically degraded when specimens must be protected: low accelerating voltage, low beam current, and short dwell times — the conditions required for IC-grade and beam-sensitive samples — yield noisy, slowly drifting image streams, and charging produces sudden whole-image shifts. Robotic probing therefore requires real-time denoising, drift compensation, visual tracking of the probe and target, visual-servo control of the manipulators, and reliable detection of the moment of mechanical contact — tasks that conventional algorithms, developed for other imaging modalities, do not meet at the required speed. Specific unresolved robustness issues identified in the robotics literature include environmental magnetic-field disturbances that shift images, electrical discharge (electrostatic discharge, ESD) when the probe touches a charged sample, probe-appearance variation that defeats template matching, and depth-of-field limits at very high magnification that prevent simultaneous focus of probe tip and sample.

Third, the payoffs of in-situ manipulation are only fully realized when manipulation, electrical measurement, and fabrication are combined in one instrument: multi-probe platforms inside the SEM and manipulation holders inside the TEM have enabled four-point electrical measurements, electromechanical tests, and EBID-assisted device prototyping on individual nanostructures, and hybrid systems coupling an SEM (large workspace, many tools) with a TEM (atomic-resolution observation) have been built since 2004 and continue to be developed. But these integrations remain laboratory demonstrations whose operation is manual, slow, and specimen-specific rather than reliable, quantified protocols.

Taken together, these three circumstances raise the question of what it would take — in control methodology, in contact physics, and in instrument integration — for in-situ SEM nanomanipulation to become reliable rather than artisanal.

Problem Statement

Make in-situ nanomanipulation inside the scanning electron microscope a reliable and quantitative instrument capability rather than a manual, operator-dependent craft. The three linked goals below are complementary open challenges that the cited sources collectively identify within one research program:

  1. Reliable robotic probing and manipulation: closed-loop, operator-independent positioning of probes and nanostructures and detection of contact, robust to the degraded imaging conditions that beam-sensitive specimens impose (low accelerating voltage, low beam current, short dwell times, image noise, whole-image drift, charging-induced shifts, and electrostatic discharge at contact), with success rates and repeatability that are measured and reported rather than anecdotal.

  2. Quantitative contact physics: measurement and predictive understanding of the nanoscale interactions that govern manipulation contacts — adhesion between probe, object, and substrate; static and kinetic friction; and electrostatic forces including electron-beam-induced charging — so that pick-up, sliding, release, and joining of nano-objects can be designed from the force balance rather than tuned empirically for each specimen.

  3. Single-instrument integration: multi-probe platforms that combine mechanical manipulation with electrical measurement and in-chamber fabrication (for example electron-beam-induced deposition), so that structure–property relationships of one and the same individual nano-object can be measured and nanodevices prototyped in situ.

The open target is documented, quantified progress on each thread, established over a stated class of specimens and operations rather than by a single demonstration: manipulation, probing, and contact operations inside the SEM that are reproducible and autonomous under realistic imaging constraints, with success rates and repeatability measured rather than anecdotal; a quantitative, predictive understanding of the governing contact forces for the systems operated, beyond the demonstrated-but-limited manipulation-based tribometry; and manipulation, electrical measurement, and fabrication exercised together in one instrument as reliable, quantified protocols rather than manual, specimen-specific demonstrations. A validated account spanning arbitrary probe–object–substrate combinations remains the general aim of the field and is left open.

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