SPM cantilever and fabricating method thereof

Abstract

Disclosed herein is SPM cantilever having a support portion, a lever portion extended from the support portion and a probe portion formed at a free end of the lever portion, said probe portion having a generally plate-like form and the probe portion having an additionally sharpened terminal end portion. The terminal end portion has its length greater than the plate thickness thereof and is reduced in thickness toward a tip of the terminal end portion, and the tip is located inwardly of the planes extended from the front and back sides of a base portion of the plate-like probe portion.

Description

[0001] This application claims benefit of Japanese Application No. 2002-313599 filed in Japan on Oct. 29, 2002, and is a division of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10 / 694,358, filed on Oct. 28, 2003, the contents of which are incorporated by this reference.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] The present invention relates to SPM cantilevers and fabricating methods thereof for use in Scanning Probe Microscopies (SPM) such as Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM). Scanning Probe Microscopies (SPM), apparatus having an atomic-order measuring resolution such as for use in measuring surface irregularities, are now widely used. In recent years, however, measurements at yet higher resolutions are demanded. For this reason, it is desirable for the cantilever used in SPM to be provided with a probe portion sharpened at its terminal end and at the same time having high aspect ratio. [0003] Among such SPM cantilevers is a cantilever as disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 2624873. The SPM cantilever uses ...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0008] It is an object of the present invention to provide a cantilever having a silicon nitride probe portion and simple fabricating method thereof in which a terminal end of the probe portion is sharpened in a well regulated manner and which is capable of adopting a high aspect ratio, processed at high yield and also capable of reducing costs. It is another object of the invention to provide a fabricating method of cantilever in which a cantilever having a sharpened probe portion can be readily fabricated without depending on the surface irregularities of a substrate as far as the substrate is capable of being covered by a silicon nitride film. It is a further object of the invention to provide a fabricating method of cantilever in which a terminal end of probe can be sharpened even if a very thin lever material is used.

Problems solved by technology

First, a problem in the cantilever disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 2624873is that it becomes impossible to accurately ascertain the surface irregularities of a sample,-even though the terminal end of the probe can be sharpened.

Also, since the silicon oxide is etched away in a short time period by fluoric acid, the fabrication of a sharpened probe portion of the order of nanometers with controlling variance thereof is difficult due to the variance in etching if a plurality of cantilevers each having probe portion are to be fabricated within a wafer.

Of the cantilever disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 2984094, on the other hand, though the forming of a probe portion having high aspect ratio is possible, the radius of curvature of the terminal end of the probe portion is difficult to be regulated to result a lower yield, since FIB processing must be performed for each one cantilever.

Also, in the case of a thin lever portion, warping of the lever might be caused due to damage or heat in the FIB processing.

Further, in addition to the expensiveness of FIB apparatus, there is a problem of increased cost for example because of the excessively long time to be consumed in forming several hundred cantilevers on a wafer.

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