Issue 41, 2020, Issue in Progress
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RSC Advances

Simulation-guided nanofabrication of high-quality practical tungsten probes

Chengye Dong, ORCID logo †a   Guodong Meng, ORCID logo †*a   Sandra Elizabeth Saji,b   Xinyu Gao,a   Pengcheng Zhang,c   Di Wu,d   Yi Pan,d   Zongyou Yin ORCID logo *b  and  Yonghong Cheng*a  

* Corresponding authors

a State Key Laboratory of Electrical Insulation and Power Equipment, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China
E-mail: gdmengxjtu@xjtu.edu.cn, cyh@xjtu.edu.cn

b Research School of Chemistry, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 2601, Australia
E-mail: zongyou.yin@anu.edu.au

c Center for Advancing Materials Performance from the Nanoscale (CAMP-Nano), State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, China

d Center for Spintronics and Quantum Systems, State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, China

Abstract

Micro/nanoscale tungsten probes are widely utilized in the fields of surface analysis, biological engineering, etc. amongst several others. This work performs comprehensive dynamic simulations on the influences of electric field distribution, surface tension and the bubbling situation on electrochemical etching behaviors, and then the tip dimension. Results show that the etching rate is reliant on the electric field distribution determined by the cathode dimension. The necking position lies in the meniscus rather than at the bottom of the meniscus. A bubble-free condition is mandatory to stabilize the distribution of OH− and WO42− ions for a smooth tungsten probe surface. Such simulation-guidance enables the nanofabrication of probes with a high aspect ratio (10 : 1), ultra-sharp tip apex (40 nm) and ultra-smooth surface. These probes have been successfully developed for high-performance application with Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM). The acquired decent atomic resolution images of epitaxial bilayer graphene robustly verify the feasibility of the practical level application of these nanoscale probes. Therefore, these nanoscale probes would be of great benefit to the development of advanced analytical science and nano-to-atomic scale experimental science and technology.

Graphical abstract: Simulation-guided nanofabrication of high-quality practical tungsten probes

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Article information

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1039/D0RA03967E
Article type
Paper
Submitted
02 May 2020
Accepted
14 Jun 2020
First published
25 Jun 2020
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

RSC Adv., 2020,10, 24280-24287

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Simulation-guided nanofabrication of high-quality practical tungsten probes

C. Dong, G. Meng, S. E. Saji, X. Gao, P. Zhang, D. Wu, Y. Pan, Z. Yin and Y. Cheng, RSC Adv., 2020, 10, 24280 DOI: 10.1039/D0RA03967E

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