Fabrication of Ultra-Sharp Tips by Dynamic Chemical Etching Process for Scanning Near-Field Microwave Microscopy

Autor: C. H. Joseph, Giovanni Capoccia, Andrea Lucibello, Emanuela Proietti, Giovanni Maria Sardi, Giancarlo Bartolucci, Romolo Marcelli
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2023
Předmět:
Zdroj: Sensors, Vol 23, Iss 6, p 3360 (2023)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 1424-8220
DOI: 10.3390/s23063360
Popis: This work details an effective dynamic chemical etching technique to fabricate ultra-sharp tips for Scanning Near-Field Microwave Microscopy (SNMM). The protruded cylindrical part of the inner conductor in a commercial SMA (Sub Miniature A) coaxial connector is tapered by a dynamic chemical etching process using ferric chloride. The technique is optimized to fabricate ultra-sharp probe tips with controllable shapes and tapered down to have a radius of tip apex around ∼1 μm. The detailed optimization facilitated the fabrication of reproducible high-quality probes suitable for non-contact SNMM operation. A simple analytical model is also presented to better describe the dynamics of the tip formation. The near-field characteristics of the tips are evaluated by finite element method (FEM) based electromagnetic simulations and the performance of the probes has been validated experimentally by means of imaging a metal-dielectric sample using the in-house scanning near-field microwave microscopy system.
Databáze: Directory of Open Access Journals
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