STTR Phase I: Diamond Nanoprobes for Atomic Force Microscopy - Imaging, Metrology, Material Property Measurement, Process Control, and Manipulation with Ultrahigh Performance

STTR 第一阶段：用于原子力显微镜的金刚石纳米探针 - 成像、计量、材料特性测量、过程控制和超高性能操作

• 批准号: 0638030
• 负责人: John Carlisle
• 金额: $ 15万
• 依托单位: ADVANCED DIAMOND TECHNOLOGIES
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2007
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2007-01-01 至 2007-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0638030&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: STTR; Phase; Diamond; Nanoprobes; Atomic

This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project will develop commercially viable atomic force microscope (AFM) cantilevers with ultra-sharp, ultra-robust tips fabricated from ultrananocrystalline diamond (UNCD). AFM is becoming indispensable in several industries for imaging, metrology, material property measurement, process control, and manipulation. These applications are reaching limits, and new applications are being prevented, due to the lack of reliability and versatility of the AFM tip. The intellectual merit of this work will be to address this by demonstrating the feasibility of a new generation of AFM probes that are highly versatile, nearly indestructible, chemically and electronically tunable, biologically functionalizable, and exquisitely stable. This will be accomplished by creating probes based on diamond, the hardest, stiffest material known. These probes will be molded and microfabricatedfrom UNCD, a nanocrystalline thin film (5 nm pure diamond grains) with mechanicalproperties nearly equivalent to single crystal diamond. Advanced Diamond Technologies, the exclusive commercialization venue for UNCD products, will partner with the Carpick group (UW-Madison), who are world leaders in AFM. The volume of world sales of conventional AFM probes is approximately $60,000,000 with a growth rate of 10 to15%. Accessing and increasing this market by enabling new scientific and industrial applications are anticipated outcomes. Commercially, the results of this work will be: (a) to enable new industrial applications for AFM, including high-throughput imaging, metrology, and characterization of large quantities of materials including massive sets of combinatorially synthesized materials, local electrical characterization for process control in micro/nanoelectronics, nanomechanical characterization of MEMS/NEMS devices, ultraprecise hard mask correction for the micro/nanolithography industry, AFM-based direct-write nanolithography, and massively-parallel AFM-based arrays for nanomechanical data storage at ultrahigh density; (b) to enable new scientific applications, including magnetic resonance force microscopy, harsh environment and high temperature scanning probe microscopy, and advanced nanotribology experiments and nanomechanics experiments and ; (c) to open up a broad array of new applications that take advantage of the advancement of molded diamond structures, including field emitter tip arrays, photonic crystals, and NEMS.

这个小企业技术转让（STTR）第一阶段项目将开发具有商业可行性的原子力显微镜（AFM）杠杆，其尖端由超纳米金刚石（UNCD）制成。AFM在成像、计量、材料性能测量、过程控制和操作等多个行业中变得不可或缺。由于AFM针尖缺乏可靠性和多功能性，这些应用正在达到极限，新的应用正在被阻止。这项工作的智力价值将是解决这一问题，通过展示新一代AFM探针的可行性，这些探针具有高度通用性，几乎坚不可摧，化学和电子可调，生物功能化，并且非常稳定。这将通过制造基于金刚石的探针来实现，金刚石是已知最坚硬的材料。这些探针将由UNCD（一种纳米晶薄膜（5 nm纯金刚石晶粒））模塑和微加工而成，其机械性能几乎与单晶金刚石相当。先进的钻石技术，联合国裁军谈判会议产品的独家商业化场所，将与Carpick集团（威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校），谁是世界领先的原子力显微镜合作。传统AFM探针的全球销售额约为60，000，000美元，增长率为10%至15%。通过启用新的科学和工业应用来扩展和增加这个市场是预期的结果。在商业上，这项工作的结果将是：（a）实现AFM的新的工业应用，包括高通量成像、计量和大量材料的表征，包括大量组合合成材料的集合、用于微/纳电子学中的过程控制的局部电表征、MEMS/NEMS器件的纳米机械表征、用于微/纳光刻工业的超精确硬掩模校正，（B）使新的科学应用成为可能，包括磁共振力显微镜、恶劣环境和高温扫描探针显微镜以及先进的纳米摩擦学实验和纳米力学实验;（c）利用模制金刚石结构的进步，包括场发射尖端阵列、光子晶体和NEMS，开辟一系列广泛的新应用。