AFM Tips Overview
Selected by AFM Tips Series
uniqprobe™ AFM Tips
- Small variations of AFM cantilever force constant and resonance frequency
- AFM cantilevers made from stress free material leading to absolutely straight AFM cantilevers
- Typical AFM tip radius of curvature better than 10nm
- Reduced drift for SPM and AFM applications in liquid environments
- Chemically inert
- High mechanical Q-factor for high sensitivity
Platinum Silicide AFM Tips
- Platinum silicide AFM probe with excellent conductivity and good wear-out behavior
- Typical AFM tip radius 25 nm
- Alignment grooves on backside of silicon holder chip
AdvancedTEC™ AFM Tips
- Monolithic silicon AFM probes for very high resolution imaging
- Fits to all well known AFMs
- Highly doped single crystal silicon (0.01-0.025 Ohm*cm)
- Rectangular AFM cantilever with trapezoidal cross section
- Holder dimensions are 1.6 mm x 3.4 mm
- REAL AFM TIP VISIBILITY FROM TOP
- AFM tip height 15-20 µm
- Typical AFM tip radius of curvature < 10 nm
- Aspect Ratio of the last 1.5 µm of the AFM tip > 4:1 (from front and side)
- AFM tip shape is defined by real crystal planes resulting in highly reproducible geometries and extremely smooth surfaces
- Also available with gold or platinum iridium coating
PointProbe® Plus AFM Tips
- Monolithic silicon AFM probes for very high resolution imaging
- Fits to all well-known AFMs
- Highly doped single crystal silicon (0.01-0.025 Ohm*cm)
- Rectangular AFM cantilever with trapezoidal cross section
- Holder dimensions are 1.6 mm x 3.4 mm
- AFM tip radius typically better than 7 nm
- Improved consistency and resolution
- Minimized variation in AFM tip shape
PointProbe® Plus XY-Alignment AFM Tips
- When used together with the Alignment Chip, AFM probes of three different AFM cantilever lengths (e.g. PPP-NCHR; PPP-XYCONTR and PPP-FMR) can be exchanged without readjustment of the beam deflection laser
- Monolithic silicon AFM probes for very high resolution imaging
- Fits to all well-known AFMs
- Highly doped single crystal silicon (0.01-0.025 Ohm*cm)
- Rectangular AFM cantilever with trapezoidal cross section
- AFM tip radius typically better than 7 nm
- Improved consistency and resolution
- Minimized variation in AFM tip shape
SuperSharpSilicon™ AFM Tips
- AFM probes for enhances resolution of micro roughness and nanostructures
- AFM tip radius is typically better than 2 nm
High Aspect Ratio AFM Tips
- The length of the high aspect portion of the AFM tip is larger than 1.5 µm or 2 µm respectively
- Special AFM tips are available to compensate the tilt of the scanner-head
- The AFM tip radii are typically better than 10 nm. We guarantee at least 15 nm
- The overall AFM tip height is 10 to 15 µm allowing measurements on highly corrugated samples
- The whole AFM tip as well as the rest of the sensor is fabricated out of one single crystal silicon (monolithic design) resulting in a high lateral stiffness and rigidity
Rotated AFM Tips
- General data like PointProbe® Plus
- AFM tip is rotated 180° with respect to the center axis along the AFM cantilever
Tipless AFM Cantilevers
- no AFM tip
- highly doped to dissipate static charge
- chemically inert
- high mechanical Q-factor for high sensitivity
Gold Coated AFM Tips
- 70 nm thick gold coating on detector side of the AFM cantilever
- 70 nm thick gold coating on both sides of the AFM cantilever
- Metallic conductivity of the AFM tip
- Detector side coating enhances the reflectivity of the laser beam
Diamond Coated AFM Tips
- 100 nm thick coating of polycrystalline diamond on the tip side
- 200 nm thick coating of polycrystalline diamond on the tip side
- Unsurpassed hardness of the AFM tip
Platinum-Iridium Coated AFM Tips
- 25 nm thick layer of chromium and platinum iridium
- Coating on both sides of the AFM cantilever
- Allows electrical measurements
- Detector side coating enhances the reflectivity of the laser beam by a factor of 2
- Stress compensated and wear resistant
Magnetic Coated AFM Tips
- Hard magnetic coating on the tip side (coercivity between 0.75 and 300 Oe, remanence magnetization between 80 and 300 emu/cm³)
- Effective magnetic moment between 2.5 and 13 emu
- Metallic electrical conductivity
- Lowest possible guaranteed tip radius of curvature down to < 15 nm
- Highest possible magnetic resolution better than 25 nm
- Al coating on detector side of AFM cantilever enhancing the reflectivity of the laser
Self-sensing + Self-actuating AFM Probes
Akiyama-Probe is based on a quartz tuning fork combined with a micromachined AFM cantilever. The great advantage of this novel AFM probe is that one can benefit from both the tuning fork’s extremely stable oscillation and the silicon AFM cantilever’s reasonable spring constant with one AFM probe.
Special Developments List
Examples of our Special Developments are:
- Plateau tips with a customized diameter
- Rounded AFM tips
- Sphere AFM tips
- Platinium Iridium or Gold coating with different thicknesses on various AFM probe types
- Backside Gold and tipside Nitride coating
Metrology Standards
In close cooperation with national technical authorities for metrology in Europe, NANOSENSORS™ has developed a set of calibration standards for SPM applications. These standards allow the calibration of the X,Y and Z axis of an SPM machine. In addition certain system induced limitations of such apparatus can be revealed and compensated.
2D Pitch Standard TYPE: 2D200
The German PTB (Physikalisch Technische Bundesanstalt), Great Britain NPL (National Physical Laboratory) and the Danish Institute of Fundamental Metrology (DFM) participated not only in the product definition phase. Their main task was the development of measurement technology for calibrating the standards. These institutions ensure the traceability not only to national standards. Through european (EUROMET) and international cooperations (Metre Convention) traceability to other worldwide metrology standards is achieved.
