Multiwalled carbon nanotube AFM probes for surface characterization of micro/nanostructures

A multiwalled carbon nanotube (MWNT) probe was used as a scanning probe in an atomic force microscope (AFM) to obtain surface height maps of micro/nano structures. The surface height maps acquired by the MWNT probe are compared with those by a conventional silicon probe on the four samples: silicon ruler, polymer microchannels, silicon nanomembrane and nanocomposite metal particle (MP) tapes. The results of the silicon ruler, microchannels and membrane samples show that the surface height maps by the MWNT probe have a better resolution than those by a conventional silicon tip due to the sharper tip with the larger aspect ratio of the MWNT. A MWNT probe is especially useful to observe surface height maps of the structures that have larger aspect ratio.Financial support for this work was provided by the National Science Foundation (contract no. ECS-0301056). The authors are grateful to Prof. Derek Hansford and Nick Ferrell of the Micro MD laboratory for providing the samples and fruitful discussions, and Imation Corporation for the samples provided. Work by C.V.N. was supported by a NASA contract to ELORET Corporation.