Carbon fibre tips for scanning probe microscopy based on quartz tuning fork force sensors

Abstract

We report the fabrication and the characterization of carbon fibre tips for their use in combined scanning tunnelling and force microscopy based on piezoelectric quartz tuning fork force sensors. We find that the use of carbon fibre tips results in a minimum impact on the dynamics of quartz tuning fork force sensors yielding a high quality factor and consequently a high force gradient sensitivity. This high force sensitivity in combination with high electrical conductivity and oxidation resistance of carbon fibre tips make them very convenient for combined and simultaneous scanning tunnelling microscopy and atomic force microscopy measurements. Interestingly, these tips are quite robust against occasionally occurring tip crashes. An electrochemical fabrication procedure to etch the tips is presented that produces a sub-100 nm apex radius in a reproducible way which can yield high resolution images.

14 pages, 10 figures

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• Local spectroscopy and atomic imaging of tunneling current, forces and dissipation on graphite
• A low-temperature dynamic mode scanning force microscope operating in high magnetic fields
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Cited by in corpus (12)

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• Force-gradient-induced mechanical dissipation of quartz tuning fork force sensors used in atomic force microscopy
• Spatially resolved electronic inhomogeneities of graphene due to subsurface charges
• Wide-Range Tunable Dynamic Property of Carbon Nanotube-Based Fibers
• Carbon tips as electrodes for single-molecule junctions
• Lithography-free electrical transport measurements on 2D materials by direct microprobing
• Calibration of piezoelectric positioning actuators using a reference voltage-to-displacement transducer based on quartz tuning forks
• Photodiodes based in La0.7Sr0.3MnO3/single layer MoS2 hybrid vertical heterostructures
• Carbon-fiber tips for scanning probe microscopes and molecular electronics experiments
• Current-induced nanogap formation and graphitization in boron-doped diamond films
• Long-range Scanning Tunneling Microscope for the study of nanostructures on insulating substrates
• Calibrating conservative and dissipative response of electrically-driven quartz tuning forks