Carbon nanotube tipped atomic force microscopy for measurement of <100 nm etch morphology on semiconductors

Abstract

The use of carbon nanotubes as tips in atomic force microscopy for a systematic study of dry etching pattern transfer in GaAs is described. The GaAs samples are patterned via electron beam lithography and then etched using magnetron reactive ion or chemically assisted ion beam processing. The technique allows diagnosis, in air, of etched features with scale sizes of Ͻ100 nm.

Growth of a single freestanding multiwall carbon nanotube on each nanonickel dot

“…This process could also be extremely useful in the fabrication of scanning probe microscopy tips terminating in carbon nanotubes, since growth of the nanotubes directly on the tip would be preferable to manual placement. [1][2][3] Thin film nickel ͑Ni͒ patterns were fabricated on a p-type boron doped 9.5 ⍀ cm ͑100͒ silicon substrate by electron beam lithography and metal evaporation. We used a bilayer e-beam resist ͑5% 100 MW ͑molecular weight͒ PMMA ͑polymethylmethacralate͒ capped by 2% 950 MW PMMA͒ that was patterned with a JEOL J6400 scanning electron microscope ͑SEM͒ converted for lithography.…”

Application of scanning force microscopy in nanotube science

“…Dai et al [46] and Nagy et al [47] were able to demonstrate several advantages of NT probes in comparison to standard commercial cantilevers. A 400-nm-wide and 800-nm-deep trench etched into a substrate was investigated by tappingmode SFM with a standard and a NT probe (Figs.…”

“…Carbon NTs fulfil all these requirements, making them very promising candidates for probes in SFM. Recently, the group of Smalley [46,47] as well as Lieber and co-workers [25,48,49] demonstrated the use of multi-and even single-wall NTs as high-resolution probes in SFM. The presently applied procedure for obtaining a NT probe is to glue NTs to a commercially available silicon or silicon nitride cantilever [46,49] (Fig.…”

Effect of catalyst on growth behavior of carbon nanotube synthesizing by microwave heating thermal chemical vapor deposition process

“…[6][7][8] The arc discharging technique, which can synthesize the carbon nanotubes ͑CNTs͒ directly from a graphite, is simple but usually produces a mixture of carbon clusters and carbon nanotubes. The chemical vapor deposition ͑CVD͒ process can grow CNTs on a catalyst substrate and thus produced materials contain a large proportion of CNTs.…”