Parallel nanoimaging and nanolithography using a heated microcantilever array

Abstract

We report parallel topographic imaging and nanolithography using heated microcantilever arrays integrated into a commercial atomic force microscope (AFM). The array has five AFM cantilevers, each of which has an internal resistive heater. The temperatures of the cantilever heaters can be monitored and controlled independently and in parallel. We perform parallel AFM imaging of a region of size 550 μm × 90 μm, where the cantilever heat flow signals provide a measure of the nanometer-scale substrate topography. At a cantilever scan speed of 1134 μm s−1, we acquire a 3.1 million-pixel image in 62 s with noise-limited vertical resolution of 0.6 nm and pixels of size 351 nm × 45 nm. At a scan speed of 4030 μm s−1 we acquire a 26.4 million pixel image in 124 s with vertical resolution of 5.4 nm and pixels of size 44 nm × 43 nm. Finally, we demonstrate parallel nanolithography with the cantilever array, including iterations of measure-write-measure nanofabrication, with each cantilever operating independently.