Next generation of heated atomic force microscope cantilever for nanolithography: modelling, simulation, and nanofabrication

This paper reports the modelling, simulation and fabrication process of a novel heated atomic force microscope (AFM) cantilever. The fabricated cantilever is used for thermal dip pen nanolithography (t-DPN) applications where the heated AFM cantilever can deposit molten polymer. The ability to control the flow of the molten polymer via thermocapillary force during pattering is limited in current heated AFM cantilevers. We present a new design of the heated AFM cantilever to improve the patterning speed and provide the ability to control the flow rate of the polymer. In this paper, we focus on the nanofabrication part to explain different semiconductor fabrication process development and integration for manufacturing the heated AFM cantilevers.