New photoplastic fabrication techniques and devices based on high aspect ratio photoresist

Abstract

This thesis deals with the development of microfabrication technologies based on photoplastic structuring by lithographic and molding techniques. These technologies, combined with an original releasing method, allow for the simple fabrication of pseudo three-dimensional, soft, photoplastic microstructures with features and shapes that are difficult to obtain with standard micro-machining. The photoplastic material used is the SU-8 photoresist, a material that is used increasingly in the growing field of micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS). Photoplastic SU-8 microstructure fabrication is based on a combination of multi-layer spin-coating, molding and photolithographic processing of the resist on a prestructured silicon substrate. The final product is obtained by release of the structure from the substrate. This thesis describes several SU-8 microstructures which have been developed with an emphasis on atomic force microscopy (AFM) and scanning-near field optical microscopy (SNOM) probes. Scanning probe microscopy is a well-established technique for surface analysis, but batch-fabricated, low-cost probes still remain a challenging issue. Using a polymer for the cantilever facilitates the realization of mechanical properties that are difficult to achieve with classical silicon technology. The design, fabrication and testing of single lever and cassettes of multiple single-lever probes are presented and demonstrates the potential for fabrication structures with complicated shape and features. The fabrication process for SU-8 AFM probes is a simple batch process in which the integrated tips and the levers are defined in one photolithography step. Tip radii of curvature smaller than 15 nm have been obtained. The cantilever thickness depends on the spin-coating parameters, hence it can be very well controlled over a full wafer. Photoplastic cantilevers with thicknesses ranging from 1 to 6 μm have been produced. Imaging soft, condensed matter with photo-plastic levers, which uses laser beam deflection sensing, exhibits a resolution that compares well with that of commercially available silicon cantilevers. Lateral resolution of 5–6 nm has been estimated from imaging DNA-plasmid molecules. A vertical resolution of the order of 0.1 nm has been found. A similar fabrication technique was also developed to fabricate photo-plastic tips for SNOM that are to be attached to optical fibers. This technique allows optical apertures to be integrated at the end of the well-defined tip directly by probe fabrication, without the need for any post-processing for the aperture formation. Sub-100 nm aperture have been fabricated using this technique. Simple fabrication, as well as topographical and optical imaging demonstrate the potential of photoplastic-based probes for both AFM and SNOM applications, as well as for future combined probes development. In addition, the fabrication of functional microstructures by using SU-8 processing needs to be combined with other microfabrication techniques. Simple releasing of the molded structures from the substrate is especially of great importance. A sacrificial layer technique based on electrochemical etching enhancement has been developed and combined with the fabrication of the different photoplastic SU-8 probes presented. This technique allows the fast releasing of large microstructures and has been demonstrated by releasing other SU-8 photoplastic microfabricated devices.