Fabrication of high aspect ratio AFM probes with different materials inspired by TEM “lift-out” method
Name
Fabrication_of_high_aspect_ratio_AFM_probes_with_d.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
1.68 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
a5606c0e276cb35a4b6583d361f9fe25
Author(s)
Tan, Swee-Ching
Zhao, Hangbo
Thompson, Carl Vernette
Date Issued
August 2016
Journal
Journal of Vacuum Science & Technology B
Publisher
American Vacuum Society
Citation
Tan, Swee Ching et al., "Fabrication of high aspect ratio AFM probes with different materials inspired by TEM “lift-out” method." Journal of Vacuum Science & Technology B 34, 5 (August 2016): no. 051805 doi. 10.1116/1.4961595 ©2016 Authors
Version
Final published version
Abstract
The most commonly used materials in all commercially available high-aspect-ratio (HAR) nanowire's (NW) tips are made of silicon and carbon nanotube which limit their applications in other types of atomic force microscopy (AFM), such as conducting AFM and magnetic force microscope. Therefore, a simple process inspired by cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy sample preparation method was used to demonstrate the feasibility of fabricating HAR AFM probes, which can easily define the tilt angle of the NW tip with respect to the direction that is normal to the axis of the cantilever to which it is attached by simply tilting the sample stage where the cantilever is placed. This is very important as it enables precise control of the inclination angle of the NW tip and allows the tip to be made perpendicular to the probed surface for scanning with different AFM mounts. Two different tips were fabricated, one attached parallel and the other attached at an angle of 13° with respect to the normal of the cantilever axis. These tips were used to profile the topography of a silicon nanopillar array. Only the probe attached at an angle of 13° allowed mapping of the topography between nanopillars. This is the first successful demonstration of an HAR AFM tip being used to map the topography of a nanopillar array. In addition, the authors also demonstrated that this method can be extended to fabricate HAR AFM tips of different materials such as copper with a slightly modified approach. ©2016 American Vacuum Society.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1116/1.4961595
