Fabrication of nanometer-sized carbon electrodes by the controllable electrochemical deposition

A new and simple method for fabricating controllable insulted nanometer-sized carbon electrodes is presented. Electrochemical etching of carbon fibers is employed, and then a repeated process of cycle voltammetric deposition of electrophoretic paint and heat cure for film shrink is followed which controls effectively the size of nanoelectrodes. This technique allows complete insulation of the whole body of the carbon fiber etched except for the very tip with the film shrink during heat curing of the film, leaving an electrochemical active area with effective diameters of nanometers. The process overcomes the pinhole formation resulted from the electrophoretic paint deposition process. The fabricated electrodes show ideal steady-state voltammetric behaviors from which the effective areas of nanoelectrodes are measured. The effective radius of the nanoelectrodes prepared ranges from tens of nanometer to hundreds of nanometer.