Fabrication of a high-aspect-ratio nano tip integrated micro cantilever with a ZnO piezoelectric actuator

This paper reports on the high-aspect-ratio (HAR) nano tip integrated micro cantilever with the ZnO piezoelectric actuator. The cantilever is proposed for the ferroelectric material investigation using the conductive AFM tip, which uses the interaction between the nano tip and the material. The HAR nano tip integrated cantilever is needed to suppress the undesirable effects caused by the interaction between a cantilever and a material. The fabricated device consists of two parts, the cantilever part and the supporting glass part. The HAR nano tip integrated cantilever part is fabricated using the trench refilling process. For the size reduction and the high resonance frequency, the rf-magnetron sputtered ZnO layer is also integrated on the cantilever. The anodic bonded glass supports the cantilever, and the indirect contact between the glass and the electrodes prevents the ZnO breakdown during the bonding process. The HAR nano tip has 6μm side length, over 18μm height, which is built on the 85μm-wide, 300μm-long, and 1.2μm-thick cantilever. The aspect ratio of the tip is three or more and the tip radius is less than 15nm. The simulated spring constant and the resonance frequency are 1.4N/m and 27.81kHz, respectively.