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

Andres Castellanos-Gomez, Nicolas Agraït, Gabino Rubio-Bollinger

Published 2010-03-12Version 1

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.