International Business Machines Corporation

Olaf Wolter

Johann Greschner

Thomas Bayer

Helga Weiss

Georg Kraus

Yves Corfield Martin

Hemantha Kumar Wickramasinghe

Johann W Bartha

Gerhard E Schmid

Gerhard Trippel

Werner Steiner

Roland R Stohr

Urs T Duerig

Wolfgang D Pohl

Martin Nonnenmacher

Michael Elsasser

Jurgen Wittlinger

Bernd Marquart

Heinrich Schmid

James K Gimewski

Willy Hildenbrand

An optical storage disk consists of a glass substrate (1) into which guide tracks (3) for servo-controlling the focussed light beams are directly stamped by a hot stamp process. After stamping, the glass substrate is thermally quenched in the stamping device to increase its breaking resistance through thermal curing. In order to achieve uniform guide tracks over the entire surface of an optical storage disk, flexible stamp stencils (35) in a flexible holder (34) are used whose curvature can be changed by applying hydro-static pressure. Suitable stamp stencils consist of monocristalline silicon disks with surface hardening, or of metal disks, structured in photolithographic processes. The stamp lands are made with bevelled edges to facilitate the separating of stamp and glass substrate after cooling.

System for stamping an optical storage disk

An ultrafine tip for AFM and STM profilometry of trenches having sidewalls. The tip includes a lateral circumferential edge protrusion to allow profilometry of the sidewalls of a trench located in a semiconductor or insulator substrate.

Ultrafine silicon tips for AFM/STM profilometry

A modular multilayer interwiring structure comprising a plurality of relatively small parts which are produced separately as `sub-units` (1). Each individual layer of the final structure is formed by joining a respective set of unit parts in one plane. The whole multilayer structure is then built by stacking these layers, preferably so that the units of one layer are not vertically aligned with the units of an adjacent layer. Each unit part includes at least one layer of conductive material (8, 9) on its front and/or rearside. These conductive layers may be individually patterned into diverse interconnection lines (5). Throughconnections (6) extending from the frontside to the backside of the units are provided using a desired set or a standardized array of via holes or openings filled with conductive material. By connecting desired throughconnections to the respective conduction lines, each unit may form an individual part of a more complex multilayer interwiring structure.

Modular multilayer interwiring structure

A scanning tunneling microscope is disclosed with the probe tip formed as an integral part of a membrane. A counter-electrode is formed on the membrane and four electrodes are provided spaced apart from the counter-electrode. The tip is scanned by means of these electrodes. Coarse positioning of the tip along the Z axis is done by applying pressure or vacuum to the membrane. Also disclosed is the method of making the scanning tunneling microscope.

Pneumatically and electrostatically driven scanning tunneling microscope

A method is described for producing ultrafine silicon tips for the AFM/STM profilometry comprising:

Method of producing ultrafine silicon tips for the AFM/STM profilometry

Method of manufacturing an optical Storage disk

The present invention relates to a process for fabricating silicon carbide films and membranes with a predetermined stress via control of the deposition parameters which comprises the following steps:

Process for fabricating silicon carbide films with a predetermined stress

A micromechanical sensor is described for the AFM/STM profilometry, incorporating a cantilever beam with at least one tip at its end and a mounting block at the opposite end. A method is described incorporating the steps of coating a wafer substrate with an insulating layer, forming a mask in the insulating layer, etching a trench in the wafer substrate, removing the insulating layer, coating the desired cantilever beam and tip material, respectively, etching the cantilever beam and tip material, and removing at least a portion of the supporting wafer material from the bottom side. The invention overcomes the problem of forming a micromechanical sensor having a cantilever beam, a tip with a predetermined shape and a mounting block.

Method of producing micromechanical sensors for the AFM/STM profilometry

A method and apparatus is described for a micromechanical sensor for the AFM/STM profilometry, which consist of a cantilever beam with a tip at its end and a mounting block at the opposite end. The method incorporated the steps of coating a wafer substrate; producing a mask for the desired cantilever beam pattern on the top side of the wafer; and a mask on the bottom side of the wafer; planarizing said cantilever beam pattern with photoresist; producing a mask for the desired tip in the area of the cantilever beam pattern producing the desired tip using an etching step, and simultaneously transferring the cantilever beam pattern from the upper to the lower part of the layer; and removing the supporting wafer material by etching through the bottom side mask. A mask for the desired cantilever beam pattern and the tip pattern contains all relevant information for a subsequent substrate etching process is described for etching step by step into a silicon substrate.

The contact probe arrangement includes a stack of perforated plates (1, 1a) through which extend a plurality contact probes. The stack of perforated plates consists of two kinds of plates. The first kind forms the lowermost plates (1a). They have circular or square holes permitting a vertical placing of the contact probes onto the contact pads (4) of the device (5) to be tested. The plates (1) of the second kind have oblong, rectangular, square, circular, elliptical or trapezoidal holes (3). With respect to the stacked plates of the second kind, alternate ones are offset against the two other adjacent plates which are aligned relative to each other, in such a manner that each contact probe is surrounded by part of the lower edge of the upper of two adjacent perforated plates, and part of the upper edge of the lower of two adjacent perforated plates. If axial stress is applied, the contact probe can thus not buckle any farther than to a part of the perforation wall limiting its maximum buckling. This ensures a sufficiently low contact resistance between the contact probe and the contact pad of the device to be tested. By using a corresponding number of perforated plates of the second kind the contact probes can adapt to height differences of the contact pads caused by irregularities in the surface of the device to be tested.

Contact probe arrangement for electrically connecting a test system to

The micromechanical sensor head is designed to measure forces down to 10.sup.-13 N. It comprises a common base from which a cantilever beam and a beam member extend in parallel. The cantilever beam carries a sharply pointed tip of a hard material, dielectric or not, for interaction with the surface of a sample to be investigated. Bulges forming a tunneling junction protrude from facing surfaces of said beams, the gap between said bulges being adjustable by means of electrostatic forces generated by a potential (V.sub.d) applied to a pair of electrodes respectively coated onto parallel surface of said beams. The sensor head consists of one single piece of semiconductor material, such as silicon or gallium arsenide (or any other compounds thereof) which is fabricated to the dimensions required for the application by means of conventional semiconductor chip manufacturing techniques.

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Aidlingen, Germany

Olaf Wolter