Tip modeling of a probe for nanochannel fabrication

Abstract

The Berkovich probe used for nanochannel fabrication is modeled as a spherically tipped regular triangular pyramid in this paper. The sphere tip model and triangular pyramid tip model dominate in the small and large scratching depth, respectively. Based on the developed model, the horizontal projected areas of the tip-sample interfaces in both single and multi scratching are analyzed, which can be used for the normal force calculation, and further guide the scratching depth prediction. According to the analysis, the tip-sample interface of the sphere tip model is independent of the scratching direction, while in the triangular pyramid tip model scratching, the tipsample interface is related to the scratching direction in single scratching, and the scratching direction, scratching depth in multi scratching.