| AFM Lithography-Dynamic Plowing |
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| Litografie | |
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AFM enables the direct machining the sample surface by means of AFM cantilever tips. This can be achieved in two ways, called Static Plowing (Scratching)
and Dynamic Plowing. In the static plowing the AFM is employed in
contact mode to pattern a sample surface or some layer on them, e.g.
single resist layer and subsequently use it as an etch mask. This
technique, while being a low-cost and low-effort technique, presents
some drawbacks. It has been proved that, while cutting a furrow into
the resist by static plowing, torsion of the cantilever may lead to
edge irregularities. Additionally, depending on the local stiffness of
the sample, while imaging the surface before or after the modification,
further modifi- cations may occur due to dragging of the surface.
By Dynamic Plowing Lithography (DPL) the surface is modified by indenting it with a vibrating tip in the AFM semicontact mode. This method provides a lithography technique that is nearly free from problems due to cantilever torsion and permits to image the modified surface without any further modification.
Dynamic Plowing Lithography can be performed in a
vector scan mode or in an image pattern scan mode. In the vector scan
mode, the software provides a set of commands that permit us to write
lines of arbitrary length and direction with defined scan speed and
oscillation amplitude. The image pattern scan mode (see Example), is a
synchronization of the raster scan mode with the desired pattern. The
pattern can be constructed with a simple pixel-oriented paint program.
References
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