MINUTE CANTILEVER AND APPARATUS UTILIZING MINUTE FORCE

摘要

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To make highly accurately and easily formable a minute cantilever having a low spring constant and a high resonance frequency by controlling the thickness by a semiconductor lithography technique, and forming the cantilever and a cantilever support stage of different materials on the same face. SOLUTION: A silicon active layer 4 of an SOI(silicon on insulator) wafer is anisotropically etched, thereby forming an active layer part 7 to be a cantilever support stage. A silicon oxide film 5 is etched thereby forming square through windows 8. Square prisms 9 are formed to a silicon substrate 6 with using the oxide film 5 as a mask. A cantilever material such as silicon nitride or the like is vapor deposited to form a cantilever film 10, on which a photoresist pattern for the cantilever is formed by a photolithography technique. The cantilever is formed by reactive ion etching with using the photoresist pattern as a mask. The silicon substrate part 6 and silicon oxide film 5 are removed at the end. The minute cantilever with a probe 1' is thus formed.