Experimental study of assembly of the carbon nanotube tip for SPM

SPM 용 카본 나노튜브 팁 조립의 실험적 연구

This paper reports about the development of scanning probe microscopy (SPM) tip with multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWNT). For making a carbon nanotube (CNT) modified tips, AC electric field which causes the dielectrophoresis was used for alignment and deposition of CNTs to the metal coated SPM tip. By dropping the MWNT solution and applying an electric field between an SPM tip and an electrode, MWNTs which were dispersed into a diluted solution were directly assembled onto the apex of the SPM tips due to the attraction by the dielectrophoretic force. In this paper, we investigate experimental conditions about the alignment of the CNT to tip axis according to the change of the angle between a tip and an electrode. Experimental results are presented, and then fabricated CNT tips are showed and measurement results for 15nm gold particles are compared with that of the conventional silicon tip.