Systematic electrochemical etching of various metal tips for tunneling spectroscopy and scanning probe microscopy

Hard point-contact spectroscopy and scanning probe microscopy/spectroscopy are powerful techniques for investigating materials with strong expandability. To support these studies, tips with various physical and chemical properties are required. To ensure the reproducibility of experimental results, the fabrication of tips should be standardized, and a controllable and convenient system should be set up. Here, a systematic methodology to fabricate various tips is proposed, involving electrochemical etching reactions. The reaction parameters fall into four categories: solution, power supply, immersion depth, and interruption. An etching system was designed and built so that these parameters could be accurately controlled. With this system, etching parameters for copper, silver, gold, platinum/iridium alloy, tungsten, lead, niobium, iron, nickel, cobalt, and permalloy were explored and standardized. Among these tips, silver and niobium’s new recipes were explored and standardized. Optical and scanning electron microscopies were performed to characterize the sharp needles. Relevant point-contact experiments were carried out with an etched silver tip to confirm the suitability of the fabricated tips.