Fabrication of thin-wall inverted pyramid hollow tips array and nano-aperture for maskless nanoscaled plasma patterning

This paper reports a new maskless nanoscale patterning method based on microdischarge devices tips array. That is, inverted pyramid microplasma devices are integrated into the scanning probe hollow tips array with nano-apertures. A 2×2 inverted pyramidal thin-wall hollow tips array with each microcavity dimension of 50μm microdischarge devices are successfully fabricated by MEMS process. Nano-apertures at the hollow tips are fabricated by Focused Ion Beam(FIB). Experimental results demonstrated that the inverted pyramid array and sidewall of the hollow tips array have a high surface quality. This work plays an important role for future application of microplasma nanoscaled maskless patterning.