Fabrication of electron beam deposited tip for atomic-scale atomic force microscopy in liquid

Recently, possibilities of improving operation speed and force sensitivity in atomic-scale atomic force microscopy (AFM) in liquid using a small cantilever with an electron beam deposited (EBD) tip have been intensively explored. However, the structure and properties of an EBD tip suitable for such an application have not been well-understood and hence its fabrication process has not been established. In this study, we perform atomic-scale AFM measurements with a small cantilever and clarify two major problems: contaminations from a cantilever and tip surface, and insufficient mechanical strength of an EBD tip having a high aspect ratio. To solve these problems, here we propose a fabrication process of an EBD tip, where we attach a 2 μ m silica bead at the cantilever end and fabricate a 500–700 nm EBD tip on the bead. The bead height ensures sufficient cantilever-sample distance and enables to suppress long-range interaction between them even with a short EBD tip having hig...

K Miyazawa, H Izumi, T Watanabe-Nakayama, H Asakawa and T Fukuma

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