MICROFABRICATION OF OXIDATION-SHARPENED SILICON TIPS ON SILICON-NITRIDE CANTILEVERS FOR ATOMIC-FORCE MICROSCOPY

We have developed a novel process for the microfabrication of atomic f orce microscope (AFM) cantilevered tips from silicon-on-insulator (SOI ) wafers, The tip and cantilever are made of crystalline silicon and l ow-stress silicon nitride, respectively, This choice of materials allo ws us to sharpen the tips by oxidation sharpening without affecting th e cantilever, We evaluated their performance in contact mode during im aging of artificial nanostructures and compared them to commercially a vailable ones, The images acquired with our tips feature superior reso lution on those samples.