Scratch of submicron grooves on aluminum film with AFM diamond tip

In this paper nanomachining on aluminum film using an atomic force microscope (AFM) with commercial diamond tip is investigated. To obtain nano scale groove structure, experiments of nanomachining on aluminum films under various machining conditions were conducted. Then the cross sections of the grooves were measured by AFM, which indicates that using diamond tip, deep grooves on the aluminum film can be made easily. The experimental results also show that the material properties of the coating/substrate are elastic-plastic nearly following a bilinear law with isotropic strain hardening. By penetrating the aluminum film, the submicron grooves are produced on the aluminum film and silicon substrate. As aluminum film is a good mask for etching silicon and silica, it provides a low cost nano fabrication technique compared to traditional nano photolithography, and has a good prospect in nano imprint template fabrication and high end photomask repair.