A novel fabrication technique is described for the production of multimaterial, lithographically defined, topography-free samples for use in experiments to investigate the nature of contrast in scanning probe microscopy (SPM). The approach uses a flat sacrificial substrate as the base for fabrication, which is deleted in the final step. This leaves an exposed, flat surface with patterns of materials contrast defined during the lithography stages. In the example application presented, these are designed to challenge the detection ability of a scanning thermal microscopy (SThM) probe, although many other applications can be envisioned. There are many instances in SPM where images can exhibit topographically induced artifacts. In SThM, these can result in a change of the thermal signal which can easily be misinterpreted as changes in the sample thermal conductivity or temperature. The elimination of these artifacts through postprocessing requires a knowledge of how the probe responds thermal features of differing sizes. The complete sample fabrication process, followed by successful topographic/thermal scanning is demonstrated, showing sub-1.5 nm topography with a clear artifact-free thermal signal from sub-100 nm gold wires. The thermal spatial resolution is determined for the sample materials and probe used in this study to be in the range of 35–75 nm.
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November 2015
Research Article|
October 13 2015
Topography-free sample for thermal spatial response measurement of scanning thermal microscopy
Yunfei Ge;
Yunfei Ge
a)
School of Engineering,
University of Glasgow
, Rankine Building, Oakfield Avenue, Glasgow G12 8LT, United Kingdom
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Yuan Zhang;
Yuan Zhang
School of Engineering,
University of Glasgow
, Rankine Building, Oakfield Avenue, Glasgow G12 8LT, United Kingdom
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Jonathan M. R. Weaver;
Jonathan M. R. Weaver
School of Engineering,
University of Glasgow
, Rankine Building, Oakfield Avenue, Glasgow G12 8LT, United Kingdom
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Haiping Zhou;
Haiping Zhou
School of Engineering,
University of Glasgow
, Rankine Building, Oakfield Avenue, Glasgow G12 8LT, United Kingdom
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Phillip S. Dobson
Phillip S. Dobson
School of Engineering,
University of Glasgow
, Rankine Building, Oakfield Avenue, Glasgow G12 8LT, United Kingdom
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a)
Electronic mail: [email protected]
J. Vac. Sci. Technol. B 33, 06FA03 (2015)
Article history
Received:
June 22 2015
Accepted:
October 02 2015
Citation
Yunfei Ge, Yuan Zhang, Jonathan M. R. Weaver, Haiping Zhou, Phillip S. Dobson; Topography-free sample for thermal spatial response measurement of scanning thermal microscopy. J. Vac. Sci. Technol. B 1 November 2015; 33 (6): 06FA03. https://doi.org/10.1116/1.4933172
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