Real-time Nanofabrication
A natural progression from imaging with the high-speed AFM is its application of modifying
surfaces. The ability to follow microfabrication processes in real-time is rare in the
semiconductor industry since device fabrication usually requires many processing steps before
the resulting structures can be observed. Our recent work has shown feasibility of
simultaneous fabrication and observation with high-speed AFM, using the controlled modification
of a silicon surface by local oxidation nanolithography, which we have previously demonstrated, with high tip
speeds.
By applying tip bias pulses synchronised to the drive signals of the high-speed stage, oxide
formation could be directed to specific regions of the sample (figure 1).
Figure 1: Frames from a movies showing the observation of oxide growth in real-time. Click on the image for the full movie. |
References
[1] J.A. Vicary, Ph.D. Thesis (2007) University of Bristol.
[2] J.A. Vicary and M.J. Miles, real-time nanofabrication with high-speed atomic force microscopy. Nanotechnology, 20, 095302 (2009).
High-speed SPM Links