Highly conductive diamond probes for scanning spreading resistance microscopy

Scanning spreading resistance microscopy (SSRM) is a powerful method for the characterization of Si semiconductor devices based on atomic force microscopy (AFM). It requires conductive probe tips made of doped diamond. Although various solid diamond probes have been fabricated, they could not satisfy the requirements for SSRM. Therefore, we have developed a SSRM probe composed of a pyramidal diamond tip attached to a Si cantilever. This letter describes the probe fabrication process briefly and presents excellent SSRM measurements obtained on Si calibration samples. Solid diamond tips integrated in Si cantilevers were used for SSRM showing a significantly higher dynamic range than the conductive probes known to date.