Fabrication of wear-resistant silicon microprobe tips for high-speed surface roughness scanning devices

Hutomo Suryo Wasisto; Feng Yu; Lutz Doering; Stefan Völlmeke; Uwe Brand; Andrey Bakin; Andreas Waag; Erwin Peiner

doi:10.1117/12.2179866

21 May 2015 Fabrication of wear-resistant silicon microprobe tips for high-speed surface roughness scanning devices

Hutomo Suryo Wasisto, Feng Yu, Lutz Doering, Stefan Völlmeke, Uwe Brand, Andrey Bakin, Andreas Waag, Erwin Peiner

Proceedings Volume 9517, Smart Sensors, Actuators, and MEMS VII; and Cyber Physical Systems; 951723 (2015) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2179866
Event: SPIE Microtechnologies, 2015, Barcelona, Spain

Abstract

Silicon microprobe tips are fabricated and integrated with piezoresistive cantilever sensors for high-speed surface roughness scanning systems. The fabrication steps of the high-aspect-ratio silicon microprobe tips were started with photolithography and wet etching of potassium hydroxide (KOH) resulting in crystal-dependent micropyramids. Subsequently, thin conformal wear-resistant layer coating of aluminum oxide (Al₂O₃) was demonstrated on the backside of the piezoresistive cantilever free end using atomic layer deposition (ALD) method in a binary reaction sequence with a low thermal process and precursors of trimethyl aluminum and water. The deposited Al₂O₃ layer had a thickness of 14 nm. The captured atomic force microscopy (AFM) image exhibits a root mean square deviation of 0.65 nm confirming the deposited Al₂O₃ surface quality. Furthermore, vacuum-evaporated 30-nm/200-nm-thick Au/Cr layers were patterned by lift-off and served as an etch mask for Al₂O₃ wet etching and in ICP cryogenic dry etching. By using SF₆/O₂ plasma during inductively coupled plasma (ICP) cryogenic dry etching, micropillar tips were obtained. From the preliminary friction and wear data, the developed silicon cantilever sensor has been successfully used in 100 fast measurements of 5- mm-long standard artifact surface with a speed of 15 mm/s and forces of 60–100 μN. Moreover, the results yielded by the fabricated silicon cantilever sensor are in very good agreement with those of calibrated profilometer. These tactile sensors are targeted for use in high-aspect-ratio microform metrology.

Citation Download Citation

Hutomo Suryo Wasisto, Feng Yu, Lutz Doering, Stefan Völlmeke, Uwe Brand, Andrey Bakin, Andreas Waag, and Erwin Peiner "Fabrication of wear-resistant silicon microprobe tips for high-speed surface roughness scanning devices", Proc. SPIE 9517, Smart Sensors, Actuators, and MEMS VII; and Cyber Physical Systems, 951723 (21 May 2015); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2179866

ACCESS THE FULL ARTICLE

INSTITUTIONAL
Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.

SELECT YOUR INSTITUTION

PERSONAL
Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.

PERSONAL SIGN IN

No SPIE Account? Create one

PURCHASE THIS CONTENT

SUBSCRIBE TO DIGITAL LIBRARY

50 downloads per 1-year subscription

Members: $195

Non-members: $335 ADD TO CART

25 downloads per 1 - year subscription

Members: $145

Non-members: $250 ADD TO CART

PURCHASE SINGLE ARTICLE

Includes PDF, HTML & Video, when available