Abstract
Carbon nanowalls (CNWs) consist of walls of thin graphite with thicknesses of a few tens of nanometers that stand vertically on a substrate. For modification of their structure after growth, we developed a method utilizing etching with oxygen atoms generated by an inductively coupled oxygen plasma. We found that oxygen atoms etched CNWs selectively from the top edges without etching reaction of the wall surface as the graphitic planes. This can provide a method for realizing carbon nanoelectronics by selective modification of the edges without oxidation of the graphene planes.