AN ULTRA-HIGH-RESOLUTION SINGLE-DOMAIN MAGNETIC FORCE MICROSCOPE TIP FABRICATED USING NANOLITHOGRAPHY

An ultra-high resolution MFM tip is proposed and demonstrated. The tip consists of a similar to 30 nm thick ferromagnetic film coated on a n on-magnetic pillar that has a diameter of 150 nm, a length over 1.5 mu m and a sharp end of a 10 nm radius. file pillar was fabricated on th e apex of a commercial scanning force microscope tip using electron be am lithography, The ferromagnetic films were coated only on one side o f the pillar but not an the rest of the tip. Therefore, the tip ll;as a trough shape and a tapered end with a tip radius of similar to 10 nm . The ferromagnetic trough is single-domain because of its nanoscale s ize and shape anisotropy. Compared to conventional Ni wire tips, the n ew tips have a much smaller magnetic charge distribution at the end of the tip, thus offering better imaging resolution. Furthermore, they h ave a lower stray field, thus making them well suited to measuring sof t magnetic materials.