Quanta 600f sem

A 105 µm core optical fiber (Thorlabs FGA105-LCA) was processed by etching away the 20 µm silica cladding from a 3 cm section in the center of a 2.5 m segment with buffered hydrofluoric acid (hazardous). The ITO film was deposited onto the exposed fiber core from an alkoxide solution^{24 (link)–26} containing InCl₃, Sn[OCH(CH₃)₂]₄, C₅H₈O₂, and C₃H₈O₂ with a molar ratio of 1:0.065:5.9:28, by dragging a generated droplet at the tip of a 50 µL micro pipette upwards over the exposed core, after which it was calcined in 1%H₂ at 600 °C inside of a controlled environment tube furnace. The ITO surface plasmon resonance was characterized both by probing with an external light source (Ocean Optics DH-2000-bal), and by observing the thermally emitted light contained in the fiber with an NIR spectrometer (ArcOptics FTNIR-U-09–026). FIB lift-out was conducted with an FEI Nova Nanolab 600 dual beam FIB with a gallium beam, after coating the surface with platinum to maintain film integrity and to assist with film lift-out. Cross-sectional imaging and spot scan EDS analysis was conducted with a 200 kV FEI Tecnai F20 TEM. The back-scattered electron image was obtained with an FEI Quanta 600 F SEM.
The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Scanning electron micrographs were obtained at the Surface Analysis Lab at the University of Utah. Samples were prepared by cutting ~1 cm long segments from the middle of four to six needles from each sampling location for both noninversion and inversion samples. These segments were coated with ~60 nm of carbon and grounded to a standard SEM stub with copper tape. Images were collected on a FEI Quanta 600F SEM under high and low vacuum with an accelerating voltage of 10–20 kV and a working distance of ~10 mm. We obtained approximately 90 images of needles collected at each of the four sampling locations for both noninversion and inversion samples.