An applied bias voltage between the atomic force microscope tip and the substrate is one of the important factors related to the growth of oxide patterns. A pulse modulator was used to apply a pulsed bias voltage that synchronizes with the resonance frequency of the cantilever between the tip and the substrate in tapping mode. The height of the protruded oxide structure was increased for short duration times of the pulsed bias due to the reduction of built-up space charge in oxide. The aspect ratio of patterns using pulsed bias voltage was about two times higher than that using continuous bias voltage. This study revealed that the pulsed bias has an advantage for obtaining a higher aspect ratio pattern than the continuous bias by reducing the effect of space charge in oxide.

In this paper, a criterion for a fast automatic approach method in conventional atomic force microscope is introduced. There are currently two approach methods: automatic and semiautomatic methods. However, neither of them provides a high approach speed to enable the avoidance of possible damage to tips or samples. Industrial atomic force microscope requires a high approach speed and good repeatability for inspecting a large volume. Recently, a rapid automatic engagement method was reported to improve the approach speed. However, there was no information on how to determine the safe distance. This lack of information increases the chance for damage to occur in calibrating optimal approach speed. In this paper, we show that the proposed criterion can be used for decision making in determining mode transitions from fast motion to slow motion. The criterion is calculated based on the average intensity of a Gaussian laser beam. The tip-sample distance where the average intensity becomes the maximum value is used for the criterion. We explain the effects of the beam spot size and the window size on the average intensity. From experimental results with an optical head used in a commercial atomic force microscope, we observed that the mean and standard deviation (of the distance at which intensity is the maximum for the 25 experiments) are 194.0 and 15.0 microm, respectively, for a rectangular cantilever (or 224.8 and 12.6 microm for a triangular cantilever). Numerical simulation and experimental results are in good agreement.

Electrochemical AFM lithography was used to directly fabricate copper nanowires. The copper ions were strongly reduced by a negative sample bias at the point where the AFM tip was localized, and copper metal wires were successfully fabricated following the direction of the electrical field of the bias. A TDA⋅HCl self-assembled monolayer (SAM) was found to play an important role as an intermediate layer for enhancing the capability of high resolution and complete development after the AFM lithographic process. The physical and electrical properties of the wires were analyzed by AFM, EFM, SEM, TEM and I-V measurement. The fabricated copper has promising potential for applications such as masks and interconnectors for nanoelectronic devices.

We analyzed the illusory slopes of scanned images caused by the creep of a Z scanner in an atomic force microscope (AFM) operated in constant-force mode. A method to reconstruct a real topographic image using two scanned images was also developed. In atomic force microscopy, scanned images are distorted by undesirable effects such as creep, hysteresis of the Z scanner, and sample tilt. In contrast to other undesirable effects, the illusory slope that appears in the slow scanning direction of an AFM scan is highly related to the creep effect of the Z scanner. In the controller for a Z scanner, a position-sensitive detector is utilized to maintain a user-defined set-point or force between a tip and a sample surface. This serves to eliminate undesirable effects. The position-sensitive detector that detects the deflection of the cantilever is used to precisely measure the topography of a sample. In the conventional constant-force mode of an atomic force microscope, the amplitude of a control signal is used to construct a scanned image. However, the control signal contains not only the topography data of the sample, but also undesirable effects. Consequently, the scanned image includes the illusory slope due to the creep effect of the Z scanner. In an automatic scanning process, which requires fast scanning and high repeatability, an atomic force microscope must scan the sample surface immediately after a fast approach operation has been completed. As such, the scanned image is badly distorted by a rapid change in the early stages of the creep effect. In this paper, a new method to obtain the tilt angle of a sample and the creep factor of the Z scanner using only two scanned images with no special tools is proposed. The two scanned images can be obtained by scanning the same area of a sample in two different slow scanning directions. We can then reconstruct a real topographic image based on the scanned image, in which both the creep effect of the Z scanner and the slope effect of the sample have been eliminated. The slope effect of the sample should be eliminated so as to avoid further distortion after removal of the creep effect. The creep effect can be removed from the scanned image using the proposed method, and a real topographic image can subsequently be efficiently reconstructed.

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