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

这个小型企业技术转让(STTR)第一阶段项目将开发商业上可行的原子力显微镜(AFM)悬臂，其尖端由超纳米晶体钻石(UNCD)制造，具有超锐利、超坚固的尖端。原子力显微镜在成像、计量、材料性能测量、过程控制和操纵等多个行业中正变得不可或缺。由于原子力显微镜针尖缺乏可靠性和通用性，这些应用正在达到极限，新的应用正在被阻止。这项工作的学术价值将是通过展示新一代AFM探针的可行性来解决这一问题，这些探针具有高度通用、几乎不可摧毁、化学和电子可调、生物功能化和极其稳定的特点。这将通过制造基于钻石的探测器来实现，钻石是已知的最硬、最硬的材料。这些探头将由UNCD模制和微制造，UNCD是一种纳米晶体薄膜(5 nm纯金刚石颗粒)，其机械性能几乎相当于单晶钻石。高级钻石技术公司是UNCD产品的独家商业化场所，它将与Carick集团(UW-Madison)合作，后者是AFM领域的世界领先者。传统原子力显微镜探头的全球销售额约为6000万美元，增长率为10%至15%。通过支持新的科学和工业应用来进入和增加这一市场是预期的结果。在商业上，这项工作的成果将是：(A)实现原子力显微镜的新的工业应用，包括高通量成像、计量和表征大量材料，包括大量组合合成材料、用于微纳电子学过程控制的局部电学表征、MEMS/NEMS器件的纳米机械表征、用于微/纳米光刻工业的超精密硬掩模校正、基于AFM的直写纳米光刻，以及用于超高密度纳米机械数据存储的基于大规模并行AFM的阵列；(B)实现新的科学应用，包括磁共振作用力显微镜、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)开辟一系列广泛的新应用，利用模塑钻石结构的进步，包括场发射极尖端阵列、光子晶体和近场机械系统。

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.