PZT cantilevers integrated with heaters and new piezoelectric sensors for SPM-based nano-data storage application

Abstract

Silicon cantilevers integrated with heaters and piezoelectric sensors were used to demonstrate a thermomechanical writing system and a piezoelectric readback system for a, low-power Scanning-Probe-Microscopy data-storage system. To demonstrate a thermal writing system, a thin polymer medium was used to record data bits, 40 nm in diameter and 20 nm in depth, by using this silicon cantilever. A sensitivity of 0.22 fC/nm was obtained by using the fabricated cantilever. Finally, to obtain readback signals using the piezoelectric cantilever, a patterned oxide wafer of 100-nm depth was scanned to show the distinctive charge signals. Therefore, the piezoelectric readback method using a PZT sensor for a low power system was successfully demonstrated in this paper.