Nanochannels on silicon oxide surface fabricated by atomic force microscopy

An experimental study was conducted to investigate the feasibility of fabricating relatively long nanochannels on hard and brittle silicon dioxide surface using atomic force microscopy (AFM) based lithography. Specifically, the relationship between the applied AFM tip force and the resultant nanochannel depth was measured and analyzed. The nanochannels were fabricated by two different AFM lithographic methods. In the first method, a constant tip force was applied and the maximum channel depth achievable was about 15nm. In the second method, a gradually increasing tip force was used and a much larger channel depth of 28nm was achieved. The average depth along the entire channel length was about 15nm. Based on the current results, it can be concluded that AFM based lithography is a viable nanomachining technique for realizing long nanochannels on silicon based substrates.