Micromachined arrays of cantilevered glass probes

We describe the fabrication and characterization of cantilevered glass probe arrays. Individual probes have tapered shafts that are 175 microm square at the base and 200 nm square at the pyramidal tip. Each array contains as many as eight probes 10-20 mm long at 450-microm center-to-center spacing, fabricated from a single glass wafer by a combination of dicing and chemical etching. Optical signal losses of individual probes were measured to be of the order of 1 dB/cm. High-density data storage and page-oriented retrieval are the potential applications of the arrays.