News
April 2023
E-beam lithography at the tip of a scanning probe
On Friday the 3rd, AIP Advances published our paper entitled, Electron-beam lithography of nanostructures at the tips of scanning probe cantilevers. The paper describes a process for fabricating nanoscale metallic gate electrodes on scanning probe cantilevers, including on the irregular surface of protruding cantilever tips. The process includes a floating-layer technique to coat the cantilevers in an electron-beam resist. We demonstrate gate definition through both a lift-off process and an etching process. Importantly, the cantilevers retain their high force sensitivity after patterning. Our method allows for the fabrication of nanoscale devices on fragile scanning probes, extending their functionality as sensors.
The research was carried out by Ph.D. students Luca Forrer and Aurèle Kamber. Research scientist Dr. Floris Braakman led the team, which collaborated with Dr. Armin Knoll from IBM Zürich.
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Here’s a video by Christel Moeller at the SNI on the work.
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October 2022
2nd annual FIBsuperProbes meeting
From 6th - 7th October the second FIBsuperProbes annual meeting took place in Tübingen (DE). During the two days, the latest results of the four research groups were presented and discussed. We would like to take this opportunity to thank Prof. Dieter Kölle and his working group for their hospitality.
July 2022
Dr. Pablo Orús leaves the NanoFab group
Dr. Pablo Orús has accepted another job and will leave the NanoFab Group. We wish him good luck in his new professional challenge.
June 2022
FIBsuperProbes Update Meeting
On the 27th of June a FIBsuperProbes update meeting was held in a digital environment. The latest results from each working group were presented and discussed. Many thanks to all who participated.
April 2022
3D-printed Dual Beam plus a micro-manipulator
José María De Teresa's research group has fabricated a DualBeam with micro-manipulator using a 3D-printer. The model illustrates the angle of 52 degrees between the electron beam and the ion beam and the position of the micro-manipulator.
Review paper in Nanomaterials published
On the 15th, Nanomaterials published a review paper named Superconducting Materials and Devices Grown by Focused Ion and Electron Beam Induced Deposition. In this review, the fundamentals of these nanofabrication techniques are presented, followed by a literature revision on the published work that makes use of them to grow superconducting materials, the most remarkable of which are based on tungsten, niobium, molybdenum, carbon, and lead. Several examples of the application of these materials to functional devices are presented, related to the superconducting proximity effect, vortex dynamics, electric-field effect, and to the nanofabrication of Josephson junctions and nanoSQUIDs. Owing to the patterning flexibility they offer, both of these techniques represent a powerful and convenient approach towards both fundamental and applied research in superconductivity.
March 2022
SQUID-on-lever paper published
On the 1st, Physical Review Applied published our article describing a new type of scanning probe, which we have developed, based on a nanometer-scale superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID). The work is entitled, Magnetic, thermal, and topographic imaging with a nanometer-scale SQUID-on-lever scanning probe. In the paper, we demonstrate a scanning probe that combines the magnetic and thermal imaging provided by an on-tip SQUID with the tip-sample distance control and topographic contrast of a noncontact atomic force microscope (AFM). We pattern the nanometer-scale SQUID, including its weak-link Josephson junctions, via focused-ion-beam milling at the apex of a cantilever coated with Nb, yielding a sensor with an effective diameter of 365 nm, field sensitivity of 9.5 nT/√Hz, and thermal sensitivity of 620 nK/√Hz, operating in magnetic fields up to 1.0 T. The resulting SQUID-on-lever probe is a robust AFM-like scanning probe that expands the reach of sensitive nanometer-scale magnetic and thermal imaging beyond what is currently possible.
October 2021
1st annual FIBsuperProbes meeting
From the 4th to the 5th the first annual meeting of the FET-Open collaboration was held in Basel at the Department Physics. This collaboration aims to enable a new era in scanning probe microscopy, in which nanometer-scale sensing devices – specifically superconducting devices – can be directly patterned on-tip and used to reveal new types of contrast. The meeting included a program of talks, a dinner, and plenty of time for discussion. Special thanks to Kousik Bagani and Claudia Wirth for helping with the organization.
May 2021
2nd FIBsuperProbes consortium meeting
On the 20th of May the 2nd FIBsuperProbes consortium meeting was held in a digital environment. The latest results from each working group were presented and then discussed. Many thanks to all who participated.
February 2021
1st FIBsuperProbes consortium meeting
On the 22th of February the 1st FIBsuperProbes consortium meeting was held in a digital environment. First results from the different groups were presented and further steps were discussed. The meeting is then repeated at a reasonable time interval.
October 2020
Kick-off Meeting
On the 29th of October the whole project consortium held the Kick-off meeting digitally. The agenda was divided into three main parts including the project administration, introduction of participants and short talks were given about the expertise, plans and current status. We are excited to work on this project!
Start of the FIBsuperProbes project
1st of October 2020: Start of the FIBsuperProbes project and the associated publication of the project website.
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