Ultrasonic Machining at the Nanometer Scale

Experiments on Highly Oriented Pyrolytic Graphite (HOPG) demonstrate that ultrasonic-assisted actuation with the tip of an Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) cantilever can induce stacking modifications and folding of triangular-shaped HOPG surface flakes. We have generated permanent displacements of buried dislocations that require stacking changes of extended graphene layers by repeatedly scanning over a same surface region. In this contribution, I discuss the opportunities of ultrasonic AFM to improve fabrication technologies on the nanometer scale and realize subsurface modification via near-field actuation.