Characteristics of fracture during the approach process and wear mechanism of a silicon AFM tip

The wear of an atomic force microscope (AFM) tip is one of the crucial issues in AFM as well as in other probe-based applications. In this work, wear tests under extremely low normal load using an AFM were conducted. Also, in order to understand the nature of silicon tip wear, the wear characteristics of crystal silicon and amorphous silicon oxide layer were investigated by a high-resolution transmission electron microscope (HRTEM). It was found that fracture of the tip readily occurred due to impact during the approach process. Experimental results showed that the impact should be below 0.1 nN s to avoid significant fracture of the tip. Also, it was observed that wear of the amorphous layer, formed at the end of the tip, occurred at the initial stage of the silicon tip damage process. Based on Archardʹs wear law, the wear coefficient of the amorphous layer was in the range of 0.009–0.014. As for the wear characteristics of the silicon tip, it was shown that wear occurred gradually under light normal load and the wear rate decreased with increase in the sliding distance. As for the wear mechanism of the silicon tip, oxidation wear was identified to be the most significant. It was shown that the degree of oxidation was higher under high normal load and in a nitrogen environment, oxidation of the silicon tip was reduced.