Carbon Nanotube AFM Probe Technology

The invention of atomic force microscopy (AFM) is having a great impact on various areas, such as nano metrology, materials science, surface science and biology (Binnig et al., 1986). The lateral resolution of AFM is mainly determined by the probe’s shape and physical property, especially the geometry and dimension of the probe end. Conventional AFM probe is pyramidal shape by micro-fabrication. The pyramidal probe would result in image resolution degradation by severe probe broaden effect, especially for the structures with higher aspect ratio, such as gratings and structures in MEMS. To broaden the AFM applications, researchers pursue new kind probes that have longer lifetime, higher resolution, and better mechanical property. Carbon nanotubes (CNT) show many excellent properties, such as, high aspect ratio, high Young's modulus, excellent elastic buckling property, and electrical and thermal conductivity (Iijima, 1991). The above characteristics make carbon nanotube be ideal as probes in AFM. Carbon nanotubes have demonstrated considerable potential as AFM probes after the first CNT AFM probe was invented in 1996 (Dai et al., 1996). This chapter would introduce the history of carbon nanotube AFM probes, including the CNT probes’ farbication and configuration optimization, the CNT probes’ image artefact and its elimination study, the applications of these new kind probes and researches to improve their performance.