Scanning diamond probe and application to thermo-mechanical nanolithography

This paper describes the fabrication, evaluation and application of a boron-doped diamond micro-probe with an integrated resistive heater element. The diamond heater with a pyramidal tip, which is bridged at the end of two diamond beams, can be electrically heated by flowing a DC or AC current. The high thermal conductivity of the diamond base supporting the heater element allows a very quick thermal response of 0.45 μsec. The hard-wearing sharp diamond tip formed by silicon-lost mold technique shows excellent durability in contact operation with a sample. Demonstration of thermo-mechanical nanolithography with this heated probe exhibits line patterns with the feature size of 40 nm on a Polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) film and transferred pits-pattern with the diameter of 230 nm and the pitch of 400 nm onto a silicon substrate.