Investigation of micro-electro-mechanical processing characteristics of layered boron nitride and carbon films

A microsquare fabrication process is developed for the investigation of the processing characteristics of boron nitride and carbon (C/BN)n and (BN/C)n films with a 4 nm nanoperiod multilayer structure. Simultaneous surface topography, friction and current measurements were performed on the multilayer films by conductive atomic force microscopy (AFM) with force modulation, which permits the quantitative recording of current and frictional force as functions of the applied force. The current image showed that highly conducting sites formed on carbon (C) layers and that nonconducting sites existed on boron nitride (BN) layers and/or mixed layers. Furthermore, amplitude response (friction force) images show that the conducting sites have a low frictional force, whereas the nonconducting sites have a high frictional force. This is thought to be due to the structure phase of the nanostructure of the films. Further, the result that the nonconducting sites have a high amplitude response (friction) implies the existence of a mixed layer (interface) between the C and BN layers. It is suggested that friction and surface-current measurements are effective methods of investigating multilayer nanostructural surfaces and fabricating micro-electro-mechanical processing systems of a high precision.