Nanolithograhpy Using Tip-Sample Material Transport Process

Extract

Scanning Probe Microscopy (SPM) [1] has been an important tool to organize matter on the nanometer scale. It has been proved to be a powerful tool not only for imaging but also for nanofabrication. SPM-based nanofabrication comprises manipulation of atoms or molecules and SPM-based nanolithography. SPM-based nanolithography, referred to as scanning probe lithography (SPL) holds good promise for fabrication of nanometer-scale patterns as an emerging generic lithography technique that employs SPM to directly pattern nanometer-scale features under appropriate conditions. The water meniscus formation between the tip and the flat substrate, due to the water layer present on any surface of a material at ambient conditions, has been studied experimentally and theoretically [2-6] using SPM techniques. The water effect in the imaging process is well understood [2, 4, 6-8]. Dip pen nanolithogaphy (DPN) [9] is one example of a technique that uses the water effect to transfer material from the tip onto sample surface in direct-write fashion with nanoscopic resolution.