A trench-type anti-wear microprobe with nano-scale electric contacts for AFM LAO lithography

A novel trench-type anti-wear microprobe with nano-scale electric contacts was proposed as an AFM probe to overcome the problem of probe tip wear and improve patterning stability in Atomic force microscope (AFM) local anodic oxidation (LAO) lithography. The proposed microprobe was fabricated using MEMS technique. The patterning and wear properties of the fabricated microprobe in AFM LAO lithography were investigated in terms of the change in the drawn line width and probe tip shape before and after a 20 mm scan. SEM images of the probe tips before and after the scan indicated that there was no obvious damage in the fabricated probe tip while apparent damage could be found on the conventional type probe tip. AFM LAO lithography results showed that the fabricated microprobe maintained a stable pattering performance before and after the 20 mm scan while the conventional type probe was unable to draw due to tip wear after the scan.