New scanning tunneling microscopy tip for measuring surface topography

Abstract

Electron-beam deposition inside scanning electron microscope (SEM) is used to prepare a new scanning tunneling microscope (STM) tip [electron-beam deposited (EBD) tip] which has a submicron diameter and a long straight sidewall. An EBD tip as small as less than 0.1 /-lm in diameter can be formed with careful beam focusing. This EBD tip is formed to be capable of providing a low-distortion STM image of deep grooves, and is quite useful in topographic measurements of microfabricated patterns.

Carbon nanotube atomic force microscopy tips: Direct growth by chemical vapor deposition and application to high-resolution imaging

“…However, these tips exhibit limited stability, due to brittleness of the fine silicon tip, and considerable tip-to-tip variations. An alternative approach taken for fabricating sharp and robust probes has involved depositing a spike of carbonaceous material onto the end of a regular pyramidal AFM probe (7,8). These amorphous carbon tips have end radii of 5-12 nm and high aspect ratios (9).…”

High‐Speed Atomic Force Microscopy of Biomolecules in Motion

“…13.8). In this technique, the focused electron beam deposits material at a selected location on the cantilever, thereby growing a tip (Akama et al, 1990), just like a stalagmite in a stalactite cavern is grown. To enable large-scale production of EBD tips, an automated technique based on pattern recognition was developed for the growth of EBD tips on whole wafers of cantilevers (Kindt et al, 2004b).…”

Fabrication of ion-trap electrodes by self-terminated electrochemical etching

“…Reducing surface roughness results in a more uniform work function and less surface contamination, which helps to reduce the electrical noise from the surface [12]. Currently state-of-the-art surface processing techniques are able to reduce the surface roughness to nanometer level [21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30], but these techniques usually requires the specialized equipments of surface science, which are too complicated for most ion trap research groups.…”