AFM probe tips using heavily boron-doped silicon cantilevers realized in a <110> bulk silicon wafer

In this paper, we report a new method of fabricating AFM (Atomic Force Microscope) probe tips at low cost. Most of previous AFM probe tips have been made of SOI wafers using back-side anisotropic silicon etch. Therefore, the wafer cost is high and the dimension control is poor because the tip length and thickness depend on wafer thickness variation and etch non-uniformity during the tip formation, respectively. In this paper we propose a new fabrication process in which probe tips are formed selfaligned to the p/sup +/ (heavily boron-doped) cantilevers from the front-side etch of a <110> bulk silicon wafer.