High-rate tunable ultrasonic force regulated nanomachining lithography with an atomic force microscope

This paper describes a high-rate tunable nanomachining-based nanolithography technique using an atomic force microscope (AFM). Controlled vibration between the cantilever tip and the sample is introduced to increase the lithographical speed and controllability of the nanomachining process. In this approach, an ultrasonic z vibration of the sample and the resulting ultrasonic force from the nonlinear force–distance interaction between the sample and the cantilever tip are utilized to regulate fabrication depth. A high frequency in-plane circular vibration is introduced between the tip and the sample to control the width of the fabricated features, and to improve the speed of nanolithography. Features (e.g. slots) with dimensions spanning from tens of nanometers to hundreds of nanometers are fabricated in one scan. A lithography speed of tens of microns per second can be achieved, which is significantly higher than other known mechanical-modification-based nanolithography methods. The patterns, that are machined on a thin PMMA film, are transferred to silicon substrate through a reactive ion etching process, which provides a cost-effective tunable approach for the fabrication of nanostructures.