Piezo-resistive ring-shaped AFM sensors with piconewton force resolution

Author

Xiong, Zheng-Mei ; Walter, Bohme ; Mairiaux, Estelle ; Faucher, Marc ; Buchaillot, Lionel ; Legrand, B.

Author_Institution

NAM6 Group, Inst. d´´Electron., de Microelectron. et de Nanotechnol., IEMN, Villeneuve-d´´Ascq, France

fYear

2012

fDate

Aug. 29 2012-Sept. 1 2012

Firstpage

184

Lastpage

189

Abstract

A new concept of Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) oscillating probes using electrostatic excitation and piezo-resistive detection is presented. The probe is characterized by electrical methods in a vacuum chamber and by mechanical methods in air. The frequency-mixing measurement technique is developed to reduce the parasitic signal level. These probes resonant in the 1MHz range and the quality factor is measured about 53,000 in vacuum and 3,000 in air. The ring probe is mounted onto a commercial AFM set-up and the surface topography of PMMA sample (2 μm square) is obtained. The force resolution deduced from the measurements is about 10 pN/Hz^0.5.

Keywords

Q-factor measurement; atomic force microscopy; frequency measurement; microfabrication; microsensors; piezoresistive devices; MEMS; PMMA sample surface topography; atomic force microscope oscillating probes; commercial AFM set-up; electrostatic excitation; frequency-mixing measurement technique; mechanical methods; parasitic signal level reduction; piconewton force resolution; piezoresistive detection; piezoresistive ring-shaped AFM sensors; quality factor; vacuum chamber; Force; Frequency measurement; Piezoelectric polarization; Probes; Resonant frequency; Vibrations; Voltage measurement; AFM; piezo-resistive detection; ring resonator;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Manipulation, Manufacturing and Measurement on the Nanoscale (3M-NANO), 2012 International Conference on

Conference_Location

Shaanxi

Print_ISBN

978-1-4673-4588-0

Electronic_ISBN

978-1-4673-4589-7

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/3M-NANO.2012.6472963

Filename

6472963