Hu Huan, Shi Bin, Breslin Christopher M, Gignac Lynne, Peng Yitian
ZJU-UIUC Institute, International Campus, Zhejiang University, Haining 314400, China.
School of Information Science and Electronic Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China.
Langmuir. 2020 Jul 14;36(27):7861-7867. doi: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.0c00923. Epub 2020 Jun 26.
We report a novel methodology for fabricating a sub-micron spherical atomic force microscope (AFM) tip controllably-a silicon sub-micron sphere atop microcantilevers, which is desired for precise nanoscale tribology measurements, biological studies, and colloid science. Silicon sub-micron spheres are fabricated through swelling of single-crystal silicon with proper high-energy helium ion dosing, a traditionally undesired phenomenon known in helium ion microscopy. Silicon sub-micron spheres with diameters from 100 nm to 1 μm are demonstrated, and the placement of silicon sub-micron spheres can be as accurate as 10 nm or even below. This AFM tip demonstrates robust measurements during friction tests on graphene/silicon oxide substrates for more than 10 000 cycles. This AFM tip overcomes a critical challenge of reducing the size of spherical AFM tips from the micrometer scale to the sub-micron scale and is promising in cross-scale mechanics studies, nanotribology, colloid science, and biology.
我们报道了一种制造亚微米级球形原子力显微镜（AFM）探针的新方法——在微悬臂梁上可控地制备硅亚微米球，这对于精确的纳米级摩擦学测量、生物学研究和胶体科学来说是非常需要的。硅亚微米球是通过用适当剂量的高能氦离子辐照单晶硅使其膨胀而制备的，这是氦离子显微镜中一种传统上不希望出现的现象。展示了直径从100纳米到1微米的硅亚微米球，并且硅亚微米球的放置精度可达10纳米甚至更低。这种AFM探针在石墨烯/氧化硅衬底上进行超过10000次循环的摩擦测试时表现出稳定的测量结果。这种AFM探针克服了将球形AFM探针尺寸从微米级减小到亚微米级的关键挑战，在跨尺度力学研究、纳米摩擦学、胶体科学和生物学领域具有广阔前景。
