Development of a nanostructural microwave probe based on GaAs

In order to develop a new structural microwave probe, we studied the fabrication of an AFM probe on a GaAs wafer. A waveguide was introduced by evaporating Au film on the top and bottom surfaces of the GaAs AFM probe where a tip 7 μm high with a 2.0 aspect ratio was formed and the dimensions of the cantilever were 250 × 30 × 15 μm. The open structure of the waveguide at the tip of the probe was obtained by FIB fabrication. An AFM image and profile analysis for a standard sample, obtained by the fabricated GaAs microwave probe and a commercial Si AFM probe, indicate that the fabricated probe has a similar capability for measurement of material topography as compared to the commercial probe.     

Properties of M-AFM probe affected by nanostructural metal coatings

In order to develop a new structure microwave probe, the fabrication of the atomic force microscope (AFM) probe on a GaAs wafer was studied and characteristics of the AFM probe with different nanostructural metal coating were evaluated in order to understand the performance of the probe for the topography of materials and the propagation of microwave signals. A waveguide was introduced by the sputtering and the electron beam (EB) evaporation technique on the top and bottom surfaces of the GaAs AFM probe with Au or Al film. The open structure of the waveguide at the tip of the probe was introduced by using focused ion beam fabrication. It was found that the fabricated probes coated with the Au or Al film have nanometer order resolution. Moreover, using the Au-coating probe formed by the EB evaporation technique, microwave emission was detected successfully at the tip of the probe by approaching an Au film sample.     

A microwave probe nanostructure for atomic force microscopy

An atomic force microscope (AFM) probe on a GaAs wafer was studied as a new microwave probe structure. A waveguide was created by evaporating an Au film on the top and bottom surfaces of the GaAs AFM probe. The fabricated AMF probe’s tip is 8 μm long and has a radius of curvature of about 50 nm. The open structure of the waveguide at the tip of the probe was generated by using focused ion beam (FIB) fabrication. AFM topography of a grating sample was created by using the fabricated microwave AFM probe. The fabricated probe exhibits nanometer-scale resolution, and microwave emission was successfully detected at the tip of the probe by approaching Cr–V steel and Au wire samples.     

Diagnostic techniques for the dynamics of a thin liquid film under forced flow and evaporating conditions

Motivated by quantification of micro-hydrodynamics of a thin liquid film which is present in industrial processes, such as spray cooling, heating (e.g., boiling with the macrolayer and the microlayer), coating, cleaning, and lubrication, we use micro-conductive probes and confocal optical sensors to measure the thickness and dynamic characteristics of a liquid film on a silicon wafer surface with or without heating. The simultaneous measurement on the same liquid film shows that the two techniques are in a good agreement with respect to accuracy, but the optical sensors have a much higher acquisition rate up to 30 kHz which is more suitable for rapid process. The optical sensors are therefore used to measure the instantaneous film thickness in an isothermal flow over a silicon wafer, obtaining the film thickness profile and the interfacial wave. The dynamic thickness of an evaporating film on a horizontal silicon wafer surface is also recorded by the optical sensor for the first time. The results indicate that the critical thickness initiating film instability on the silicon wafer is around 84 μm at heat flux of ~56 kW/m². In general, the tests performed show that the confocal optical sensor is capable of measuring liquid film dynamics at various conditions, while the micro-conductive probe can be used to calibrate the optical sensor by simultaneous measurement of a film under quasi-steady state. The micro-experimental methods provide the solid platform for further investigation of the liquid film dynamics affected by physicochemical properties of the liquid and surfaces as well as thermal-hydraulic conditions.     

A CuO nanowire infrared photodetector

The authors report the growth of CuO nanowires on an oxidized Cu wire and the fabrication of CuO infrared photodetector. By annealing the Cu wire at 500 °C in air for 2 h, high density CuO nanowires with an average length of 1.2 μm and an average diameter of 50 nm were successfully grown vertically on the CuO wire. Using an 808 nm laser diode as the excitation source, it was found that rise-time and fall-time of the fabricated CuO infrared photodetector were 15 and 17 s, respectively, when measured in vacuum.     

Directed transport and location-designated rotation of nanowires using ac electric fields

The motion control of individual nanowires is essential for effective nanowire manipulation strategies. In this paper, we demonstrate a simple and general method to dynamically control the motion of a chemically untreated nanowire in a quadrupole electrode structure. The motion of single nanowires was determined by positive dielectrophoresis and orientational torque, which were induced by optionally exerting ac signals onto specific electrodes for regulating the electric field distribution in real time. A silver nanowire was guided to transform postures and transport directionally in a working regime of about 115 μm × 115 μm. The selected nanowire was then transported to a region of weak gradients and forced to rotate at the designated location subsequently. The behavior of the nanowires, including their posture, cornering time, linear displacement and location-designated rotation, was dynamically monitored and regulated. A simple analytical model was developed to derive the driving forces and torques on the nanowire.     

The preparation of organic light-emitting diode encapsulation barrier layer by low-temperature plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition: a study on the $$\hbox {SiO}_\mathrm{x}\hbox {N}_\mathrm{y}$$ film parameter optimization

This study prepared \(\hbox {SiO}_\mathrm{x}\hbox {N}_\mathrm{y}\) film by using plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition in organic light-emitting diode (OLED) encapsulation to prevent the invasion of moisture and oxygen for longer light-emitting lifetime of OLED components. It applied high density inductively coupled plasma for the coating of film on polyethersulfone, silicon and glass substrate, and discussed the relevance between process parameters and quality characteristics including coating uniformity, coating thickness and moisture permeation. This study used Taguchi method to plan the experiment and calculated the optimal parameters of each quality, used technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution and grey relational analysis to determine the optimal parameter of all qualities. The back-propagation neural network was combined with Levenberg–Marquardt algorithm to construct the simulation and prediction system. Based on the quality optimization design, the single layer film’s moisture permeation rate was 0.02 g/m\(^{2}\)/day, the maximum coating thickness reached 420 nm, and the fastest rate was 21 nm/min, which was higher than the industrial standard specification (10 nm/min) by 110 %.     

CuO nanowire-based humidity sensors prepared on glass substrate

The authors report the growth of CuO nanowires (NWs) on glass substrate and the fabrication of CuO NW humidity sensors. It was found that average length of the CuO NWs increased from 0.4 μm to 2.8 and 6 μm, respectively, as we increased the initial copper film thickness from 0.5 μm to 1 and 2 μm after oxidation. It was also found that resistance of the CuO NWs increased as we increased the relative humidity due to the p-type nature of CuO. Furthermore, it was found that samples with a larger initial copper film thickness and thus a longer average CuO NW length could provide a larger sensor response.     

A methodology for quantitative evaluation of local electrical conductivity: from micron to submicron

The local electrical conductivity of aluminum thin film with dimensions from micron to submicron was quantitatively measured by a four-point atomic force microscope (AFM) technique. The technique is a combination of the principles of four-point probe method and standard AFM. A silicon nitride based AFM probe with a V-shaped two-dimensional sliced structure tip was patterned by using conventional photolithography method. The probe was then etched to four parallel electrodes isolated from each other, for the purpose of performing current input and electrical potential drop measurement. The spacing between electrodes is smaller than 1.0 μm, which facilitates the quantitative electrical conductivity measurement of ultrathin film. The four-point AFM probe technique is capable of measuring surface topography together with local conductivity simultaneously. The technique was applied to a series of 99.999% aluminum thin films with thicknesses from micron to submicron. The repeatable measurements demonstrate the capability of this technique and its possible extension to be used for fast in situ electrical properties characterization of submicron interconnects that widely applied in nanosensors and nanodevices.     

An analytical coupling coefficient for MEMS tunable silicon nanowire waveguide coupler devices

Silicon nanowire waveguides are promising for future integration of photonic circuits with silicon electronics. Electromechanical control of waveguide is also favorable for variable silicon nanowire waveguide devices. In this study, we investigated analytically the characteristics of a silicon nanowire waveguide coupler for electromechanical waveguide devices. The electric field of the silicon nanowire waveguide was enhanced by the high-index contrast. The enhanced electric field increased the coupling coefficient by a factor of 2.7 for a silicon waveguide of 400 nm in width and 260 nm in thickness compared with the approximation on the basis of low-index-contract. The analytically derived coupling coefficient was evaluated experimentally by investigating a waveguide coupler switch with a micro-electromechanical actuator.     

Oxide bound impact on hot-carrier degradation for gate electrode workfunction engineered (GEWE) silicon nanowire MOSFET

In this present work, we explore the hot carrier fidelity of gate electrode workfunction engineered silicon nanowire (GEWE-SiNW) MOSFET at 300 K using DEVEDIT-3D device editor and ATLAS device simulation software. TCAD simulation shows reduction in the hot carrier reliability of a GEWE SiNW MOSFET in terms of electron temperature, electron velocity and Hot Electron gate current for reflecting its efficacy in high power CMOS applications. Further, a comparative investigation for different values of oxide thickness and high-k has been done to analyze the performance of GEWE-SiNW MOSFET in terms of electrical parameters such as conduction band, DIBL, electric field, electron temperature, electric velocity and gate current. It has been clearly shown that with oxide thickness 0.5 nm the hot-carrier reliability and device performance improves in comparison to oxide thickness 2.5 nm. In addition, with k = 21(HfO₂) device performance in terms of hot-carrier reliability further enhanced due to increased capacitance and thus offer its effectiveness in sub-nm range analog applications.     

Design and batch fabrication of probes for sub-100 nm scanningthermal microscopy

A batch fabrication process has been developed for making cantilever probes for scanning thermal microscopy (SThM) with spatial resolution in the sub-100 nm range. A heat transfer model was developed to optimize the thermal design of the probes. Low thermal conductivity silicon dioxide and silicon nitride were chosen for fabricating the probe tips and cantilevers, respectively, in order to minimize heat loss from the sample to the probe and to improve temperature measurement accuracy and spatial resolution. An etch process was developed for making silicon dioxide tips with tip radius as small as 20 nm. A thin film thermocouple junction was fabricated at the tip end with a junction height that could be controlled in the range of 100-600 nm. These thermal probes have been used extensively for thermal imaging of micro- and nano-electronic devices with a spatial resolution of 50 nm. This paper presents measurement results of the steady state and dynamic temperature responses of the thermal probes and examines the wear characteristics of the probes     

Thermal mechanics of a contact sensor used in hard disk drives

A typical thermal-contact sensor (TCS) used in hard-disk drives was investigated by the simulation. Analytical solution to solve temperature variation of sensor due to frictional heat was built to estimate the sensor temperature rise under variable heating power and interference height between the head and disk. To accurately and systematically qualify sensor-temperature distribution and resistance variation under certain variable conditions and sensor time constant, head housing a TCS was modeled by ANSYS commercial software, and thermal-mechanics of TCS coupled with air bearing dynamics was simulated. Simulated results indicated that a TCS with a proper size of 1 μm or less had a maximum resistance variation on friction induced heating to generate a maximum TCS signal output. The sensor-heating maximum protrusion was less that 0.1 nm, and time constant of TCS is about 0.125 μs and its response frequency is about 8 MHz. With a highly accurate measurement system, TCS can detect out asperities of tens of nanometers or less. These results will be helpful in developing and designing thermal-contact sensors for use in hard-disk drives.     

Component design and testing for a miniaturised autonomous sensor based on a nanowire materials platform

We present the design considerations of an autonomous wireless sensor and discuss the fabrication and testing of the various components including the energy harvester, the active sensing devices and the power management and sensor interface circuits. A common materials platform, namely, nanowires, enables us to fabricate state-of-the-art components at reduced volume and show chemical sensing within the available energy budget. We demonstrate a photovoltaic mini-module made of silicon nanowire solar cells, each of 0.5 mm² area, which delivers a power of 260 μW and an open circuit voltage of 2 V at one sun illumination. Using nanowire platforms two sensing applications are presented. Combining functionalised suspended Si nanowires with a novel microfluidic fluid delivery system, fully integrated microfluidic–sensor devices are examined as sensors for streptavidin and pH, whereas, using a microchip modified with Pd nanowires provides a power efficient and fast early hydrogen gas detection method. Finally, an ultra-low power, efficient solar energy harvesting and sensing microsystem augmented with a 6 mAh rechargeable battery allows for less than 20 μW power consumption and 425 h sensor operation even without energy harvesting.     

Tin-copper mixed metal oxide nanowires: Synthesis and sensor response to chemical vapors

Tin-copper mixed metal oxide nanowires were successfully prepared by thermally oxidizing electrodeposited metallic nanowires (Sn-8 at.% Cu, Sn-43 at.% Cu and Sn-86 at.% Cu). The structure and composition of these nanowires before and after thermal oxidation were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry (EDS), and X-ray diffraction (XRD). Dielectrophoresis was utilized to align the nanowires in contact with pre-fabricated interdigitated electrodes to form a chemiresistive gas sensor circuit. The sensitivity variation of the nanowires with different compositions was tested with acetone, ethanol and ethyl acetate vapors at different concentration levels, and the temperature effect was studied at five operating temperatures, ranging from 200 °C to 440 °C. All the three mixed metal oxide nanowire sensors exhibited higher sensitivity than that of pure tin oxide nanowire sensor. The sensor performance was also investigated in terms of response/recovery time and repeatability. An interesting positive/negative response was observed by varying the element composition of the mixed oxide nanowires.     

Nonlinear and hysteretic influence of piezoelectric actuators in AFMs on lateral dimension measurement

Piezoelectric actuators that are used in atomic force microscopes (AFM) have undesirable properties. The nonlinear and hysteretic characteristics of piezoelectric actuators introduce geometric deformations in the reconstructed AFM images. Due to these deformations, the quantitative interpretation of the absolute dimensions of surface features is difficult and often not accurate.A real-time measuring ‘Nano-metrological Atomic Force Microscope’ system equipped with an ultra-high resolution three-axis laser interferometer system is developed, in which the undesirable properties of piezoelectric actuators are compensated completely. Using this AFM and a one-dimensional (1D) grating reference standard with pitches of 240 nm, which is one of the widely used reference standards as nano-metrological lateral scales, the influences of nonlinear and hysteretic characteristics of piezoelectric actuators on image reconstruction and lateral dimension measurement are examined and compared quantitatively among three different measurement methods. The three measurement methods are: (1) the relative movement between probe tip and sample is controlled and measured directly by voltage signals applied on the XYZ scanner, the nonlinear and hysteretic characteristics of piezoelectric actuators are not compensated; (2) the relative movement between probe tip and sample is controlled by voltage signals applied on the XYZ scanner, but it is measured accurately by interferometers; (3) the relative movement between probe tip and sample in lateral directions are both controlled and measured accurately by interferometers. According to the comparison results, an accurate displacement control system is key to reduce the influences of undesirable properties of piezoelectric actuators and the developed AFM system with three-axis laser interferometer system is proved to eliminate the nonlinear and hysteretic characteristics of piezoelectric actuators completely.     

Fabrication of symmetrical meandering NiFe/Cu/NiFe film sensors and study of the effects of field direction and film thickness on giant magnetoimpedance

Sandwich NiFe/Cu/NiFe film sensors with symmetrical meandering structure are fabricated by Micro-Electro-Mechanical-System (MEMS) technology, the longitudinal, transverse, and perpendicular giant magnetoimpedance (GMI) effect have been investigated comprehensively. The correlation between film thickness and GMI effect are analyzed thoroughly. The experimental results show that the alternating current (AC) frequency of maximum GMI ratio decreases gradually with the increasing of magnetic layer thickness, but the conducting layer exhibits an opposite tendency. The NiFe and Cu layer both show a GMI ratio tendency from increasing to decreasing along with the increase of film thickness. It is observed the longitudinal, transverse and perpendicular GMI effect share a common characteristic: the AC frequency of maximum GMI ratio increases with the increase of external field intensity. However, there is a notable difference between them, it is demonstrated that the higher GMI ratio and sensitivity can be obtained in the longitudinal direction. The longitudinal GMI ratio reaches the peak value 191.2 % at f _AC = 6.5 MHz under H _L = 17 Oe in six turns sample with the Cu and NiFe thickness of 6 and 7 μm, respectively.     

Micromachining of diamond film for MEMS applications

We realized two diamond microdevices: a movable diamond microgripper and a diamond probe for an atomic force microscope (AFM), consisting of a V-shaped diamond cantilever and a pyramidal diamond tip, using a microfabrication technique employing semiconductive chemical-vapor-deposited diamond thin film. The microgripper was fabricated by patterning the diamond thin film onto a sacrificial SiO ₂ layer by selective deposition and releasing the movable parts by sacrificial layer etching. The diamond AFM probe was fabricated by combining selective deposition for patterning a diamond cantilever with a mold technique on an Si substrate for producing a pyramidal diamond tip. The cantilever was then released by removing the substrate. We report the initial results obtained in AFM measurements taken using the fabricated diamond probe. These results indicate that this diamond probe is capable of measuring AFM images. In addition, we have developed the anodic bonding of diamond thin film to glass using Al or Ti film as an intermediate layer for assembly. This bonding technique will allow diamond microstructures to be used in many novel applications for microelectromechanical systems     

Transparent thin thermoplastic biochip by injection-moulding and laser transmission welding

Recently microfluidic devices have emerged as a viable technology for the miniaturization of high throughput tools for analytical tasks related to structural biology such as screening of crystallization conditions and structural analysis. This work reports the manufacture of microfluidic chips in transparent thermoplastic polymers [poly(methylmethacrylate) (PMMA), and cyclic olefin copolymer (COC)] using two complementary technologies, injection moulding for the fabrication of the fluidic level and laser transmission welding for the sealing of the cover. A steel mould insert was produced by laser micro caving using a solid state laser radiation source (Nd:YAG, wavelength 1,064 nm). Fluidic chips of ~670 μm thickness comprising channels of 50 μm depth and width down to 50 μm were injection moulded in PMMA and COC. Joining of transparent thin cover film to the micro-injected fluidic level was performed by laser transmission welding using high power diode laser radiation (wavelength 940 nm) and an intermediate thin absorbing layer with a thickness of about several nanometers.     

Micro solar energy harvesting using thin film selective absorber coating and thermoelectric generators

The use of a nanometer-scale solar selective absorber coating to enhance the performance of a thermoelectric generation (TEG) module in solar thermal energy harvesting is presented. The thin film coating is fabricated by electrochemical deposition of a bimetallic layer of tin and nickel on copper substrate. The coating has a dendrite structure with grain size of 100 nm. Testing indicates the ability of these collectors to transform incident radiation into thermal energy. The collectors utilizing the selective coating achieved a final temperature 10 °C higher than the baseline copper device. More importantly, the coating demonstrates the ability to collect and transmit over 90 % of the available heat flux. The harvested thermal energy is applied to drive a TEG module for useful power generation. The device utilized with selective absorber coating shows an output power 4.5 times more than the baseline device. Overall area of the collector plate is 16 cm².