Abstract
In order to effectively increase the resonance frequency and the quality factor of atomic force microscope (AFM) probes, a novel oscillating probe based on a dog-bone shaped MEMS resonator was conceived, designed, fabricated and evaluated. The novel probe with 400 μm in length, 100 μm in width and 5 μm in thickness was enabled to feature MHz resonance frequencies with integrated thermal actuation and piezoresistive detection. Standard silicon micromachining was employed. Both electrical and optical measurements were carried out in air. The resonance frequency and the quality factor of the novel probe were measured to be 5.4 MHz and 4000 respectively, which are much higher than those (about several hundreds of kHz) of commonly used cantilever probes. The probe was mounted onto a commercial AFM set-up through a dedicated probe-holder and circuit board. Topographic images of patterned resist samples were obtained. It is expected that the resonance frequency and the measurement bandwidth of such probes will be further increased by a proper downscaling, thus leading to a significant increase in the scanning speed capability of AFM instruments.
Highlights
Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) is widely used to characterize surface topography and forces.Since the brilliant demonstration of high-speed (HS) atomic force microscope (AFM) in 2008 by Ando et al [1], the applications of AFM have been widespread in biological research area [2] as well as in materials sciences [3]thanks to the ability to observe dynamic processes
A previous research work of Kawakatsu et al [7] has shown that the resonance frequency of small cantilevers can reach up to 10 MHz
The quality factor of these probes was low, typically Q = 5 in air [7], which has a negative impact on the measurement sensitivity
Summary
Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) is widely used to characterize surface topography and forces.Since the brilliant demonstration of high-speed (HS) AFM in 2008 by Ando et al [1], the applications of AFM have been widespread in biological research area [2] as well as in materials sciences [3]thanks to the ability to observe dynamic processes. Since the brilliant demonstration of high-speed (HS) AFM in 2008 by Ando et al [1], the applications of AFM have been widespread in biological research area [2] as well as in materials sciences [3]. One key element to achieve the goal should be to further increase the measurement bandwidth by fabricating smaller cantilever probes with higher resonance frequency (i.e., the working frequency of oscillating mode AFM) [5,6]. A previous research work of Kawakatsu et al [7] has shown that the resonance frequency of small cantilevers can reach up to 10 MHz. the quality factor of these probes was low, typically Q = 5 in air [7], which has a negative impact on the measurement sensitivity
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