Self-Adaptive Grinding for Blind Tip Reconstruction of AFM Diamond Probe

Abstract

Blind tip reconstruction (BTR) method is one of the favorable methods to estimate the atomic force microscopy (AFM) probe shape. The exact shape of the characterizer is not required for BTR, while the geometry of the sample may affect the reconstruction significantly. A cone-shaped array sample was chosen as a characterizer to be evaluated. The target AFM probe to be reconstructed was a diamond triangular pyramid probe with two feature angles, namely front angle (FA) and back angle (BA). Four conical structures with different semi-angles were dilated by the pyramid probe. Simulation of scanning process demonstrates that it is easy to judge from the images of the isolated rotary structure, cone-shaped, the suitability of the sample to be a tip characterizer for a pyramid probe. The cone-shaped array sample was repeatedly scanned 50 times by the diamond probe using an AFM. The series of scanning images shrank gradually and more information of the probe was exhibited in the images, indicating that the characterizer has been more suitable for BTR. The feature angle FA of the characterizer increasingly reduces during the scanning process. A self-adaptive grinding between the probe and the characterizer contributes to BTR of the diamond pyramid probe.