Chae Heebum, Hwang Gwangseok, Kwon Ohmyong
Korea University, School of Mechanical Engineering, Seoul 136-701, South Korea.
Korea University, School of Mechanical Engineering, Seoul 136-701, South Korea.
Ultramicroscopy. 2016 Dec;171:195-203. doi: 10.1016/j.ultramic.2016.09.013. Epub 2016 Sep 20.
With the vigorous development of new nanodevices and nanomaterials, improvements in the quantitation and resolution of the measurement of nanoscale energy transport/conversion phenomena have become increasingly important. Although several new advanced methods for scanning thermal microscopy (SThM) have been developed to meet these needs, such methods require a drastic enhancement of SThM probe performance. In this study, by taking advantage of the characteristics of micromechanical structures where their mechanical stability is maintained even when the film that composes the structures becomes extremely thin, we develop a new design of SThM probe whose tip is made of ultra-thin SiO film (~100nm), fabricate the SThM probes, and demonstrate experimentally that the tip radius, thermal time constant, and thermal sensitivity of the probe are all improved. We expect the development of new high-performance SThM probes, along with the advanced measurement methods, to allow the measurement of temperature and thermal properties with higher spatial resolution and quantitative accuracy, ultimately making essential contributions to diverse areas of science and engineering related to the nanoscale energy transport/conversion phenomena.
随着新型纳米器件和纳米材料的蓬勃发展，提高纳米尺度能量传输/转换现象测量的定量和分辨率变得越来越重要。尽管已经开发了几种新的先进扫描热显微镜（SThM）方法来满足这些需求，但此类方法需要大幅提高SThM探针的性能。在本研究中，利用微机械结构的特性，即即使构成结构的薄膜变得极薄时其机械稳定性仍能保持，我们开发了一种新型SThM探针设计，其尖端由超薄SiO薄膜（约100nm）制成，制造了SThM探针，并通过实验证明该探针的尖端半径、热时间常数和热灵敏度均得到了改善。我们期望新型高性能SThM探针的开发，连同先进的测量方法，能够以更高的空间分辨率和定量精度测量温度和热性质，最终为与纳米尺度能量传输/转换现象相关的各种科学和工程领域做出重要贡献。
