Fabrication of PdIr-coated conductive atomic force microscope tip and its application in nanofabrication

We report a new,conductive AFM tip, which is fabricated by thermal evaporat ion of 20-30nm PdIr alloy onto commercial silicon nitride cantilevers. With well-controlled evaporation conditions, a tip with nice electrical conduct ivity, good mechanical and chemical stabilities has been prepared. Thus fab ricated AFM tips were used to measure electrical properties of materials wi th spatial resolution higher than 2nm, and to fabricate nanostructures on Z n-doped p-type GaAs (100) and chromium surfaces via field-induced oxidation .