Molecular dynamic study for nanopatterning using atomic force microscopy
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I. INTRODUCTION
THE rapid improvements in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) and microoptoelectromechanical systems in the last few decades have given rise to a wide variety of applications, including mechanical elements, sensors, actuators, and electronics. In particular, MEMS devices, which are mostly manufactured through photolithography or the LIGA (lithographic galvanoformurg abformung) process on a silicon wafer, have many potential applications in the automotive industry, displays, printers, fluidics, optics, analytical instruments, communications and information, biomedical industry, and aerospace industry.[1,2,3] As part of scanning probe microscope technology, atomic force microscopy (AFM) has been used to evaluate and measure the mechanical and structural properties of materials on a nanometer scale. When an AFM probe attached to the end of a flexible cantilever beam with a very low rigidity traces the surface of a material in a contact mode, deep scratching and several regimes, ranging from frictionless sliding to permanent wear, can be observed, depending on the applied load. In this way, AFM has been successfully used to characterize nanowear processes in materials of technological interest, such as the use of silicon for magnetic head sliders and polymers for electronic packaging and liquid crystal displays. Recently, the use of AFM-based nanolithography has been proposed for machining material surface and fabricating nanostructure components, such as nanopatterning and nanowire.[4,5,6] The AFM-based lithography is a technique that directly machines the surface of a material using a hard probe (tool) attached to a rigid cantilever beam and can pattern nanometer structures, such as holes, grooves, and so on, without any damage to the material; this is because no high energy, such as an electron beam, is used. The merit of the AFM-based lithographic technique is that the fabrication resolution can YOUNG-SUK KIM, Professor, CHAN-IL KIM, Graduate Student, and JUN-YOUNG PARK, Postdoctoral Researcher, are with the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Kyungpook National University, Daegu 702701, Korea. Contact e-mail: [email protected] KYUNG-HOAN NA, Senior Vice President, is with the Korea Institute of Industrial Technology, ChonanCity 330-825, Korea. Manuscript submitted December 19, 2003. METALLURGICAL AND MATERIALS TRANSACTIONS A
be extended to a nanometric scale[7,8,9] in contrast to conventional photolithography and electron-beam lithography, such as LIGA technology and electrodischarge machining. This process called atomic force microscopy guided nanomachining was recently adopted as a photomask repair tool to remove defects in mask patterns in the semiconductor industry.[9] To understand and analyze the nanomachining process on an atomistic scale, since the experimentation is no easy task, numerical virtual simulation, such as molecular dynamic (MD) simulation,[10] is a very useful tool. The MD simulation has already been applied to a wide range of fields, including crystal growth, nanoindentatio
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