SBIR Phase II: Batch Fabrication of High Aspect Ratio Metallic AFM Probes

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第二阶段项目旨在开发一种低成本的制造工艺，以生产用于原子力显微镜（AFM）的导电和高纵横比探针。设计并制造了一种具有高精度对准和原位过程监控传感器的新型加工工具。探针（所谓的NeedleProbes）将以批量工艺制造，可以用独立的金属合金纳米线尖端对整个传统AFM探针进行图案化。该项目的更广泛/商业影响将是提供价格合理、导电和高纵横比的AFM探针的潜力，这些探针将非常适合于生物学中的细胞扫描和探测，以及超高纵横比结构成像的材料科学，以及纳米结构的电子测量。目前AFM探针的制造方法是一个连续的过程，每小时生产大约五个探针。该项目在批量制造方面的进展有望远远超出当前的制造方法，并将探头的价格降低5倍。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project aims to develop a low-cost manufacturing process to produce conductive and high-aspect-ratio probes for atomic force microscopy (AFM). A new fabrication tool with high-precision alignment and in-situ process monitoring sensors will be designed and constructed. The probes (so-called NeedleProbes) will be fabricated in a batch process that can pattern an entire wafer of conventional AFM probes with freestanding metal alloy nanowire tips. The broader/commercial impacts of this project will be the potential to provide affordable, conductive and high-aspect-ratio AFM probes that would be well suited in biology for cell scanning and probing, and materials science for imaging of ultra-high-aspect-ratio structures, and electronic measurement of nanostructures. The current fabrication method of AFM probes is a serial process that produces approximately five probes per hour. The advancement in this project toward batch fabrication is expected to extend far beyond the current fabrication method and result in a price reduction of the probes by a factor of 5.