Fabrication of silicon oxide nanotips by mechanical contact and elongation methods

We investigated the thinning process of silicon oxide tips by mechanical contact and elongation by in situ high-resolution transmission electron microscopy with functions of atomic force microscopy and scanning tunneling microscopy. The processing precision of thinning reached the atomic scale. However, the stability of the thinned tips determined their minimum size; the size of the produced tips was at least approximately 1 nm. We produced thin, long nanotips for optical fiber probes by this method. We also performed the aperture opening of optical fiber probes for scanning near-field optical microscopy. Scraping produced an aperture of approximately 15 nm.