Comparison of the bias voltage effect and the force effect during the nanoscale AFM electric lithography on the copper thin film surface.

As one of the tip-based nanoscale machining methods, AFM-based nanolithography has been proved to be capable of fabricating nanostructures and devices on a wide range of materials by means of mechanical force, bias voltage, chemical reaction, etc. In this paper, we have compared the influences of the bias voltage effect and the force effect during the nanoscale AFM electric lithography on the metallic copper film surface respectively through the bias voltage dominating scheme and the contact force dominating scheme. The geometric sizes of the line structures and the area patterns fabricated under the two schemes with different parameter settings were compared to obtain the machining characteristics and mechanisms of the two distinct effects separately. The ratios of debris amount to the total material removal amount under the two schemes were quantitatively evaluated. Furthermore, both the arbitrary line structure with high aspect ratio and the area pattern with small surface roughness were fabricated under the appropriate scheme and parameter settings. This study is of great help to effectively achieve the desired nanoscale patterns by AFM electric lithography for their promising applications in the fabrication of various MEMS or NEMS devices. SCANNING 38:412-420, 2016. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.