Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been widely used as nanobuilding blocks to assemble nanostructures and nanodevices. Therefore, the interaction between a CNT and an environment is important. In the present study, the interaction forces, which consisted mainly of van der Waals forces, between a single multi-walled carbon nanotube tip and a gold surface were evaluated under a scanning electron microscope by means of nanorobotic manipulation. The influence of electron beam irradiation was also investigated. It was found that electron beam irradiation can increase the interaction forces by producing contamination at the contact area. The van der Waals forces were calculated theoretically and the theoretical values were close to the experimental values.
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