Study of the electrode tool wear and the probe tip sharpening phenomena during the nanoscale STM electric discharge lithography of the bulk HOPG surface

•We observe the influence of the STM probe tool wear on the fabrication results.•The geometric evolution of the STM probe is measured from SEM imaging quantitatively.•The phenomena of the probe tip sharpening effect is experimentally demonstrated.•The mechanism underlying the probe tip sharpening effect is revealed.•We propose the effective method to improve the fabrication consistency and the tool lifetime.

Scanning tunneling microscope (STM)-based electric discharge lithography or machining is capable of fabricating nanostructures or nano-devices out of the carbon-based materials with low cost and high accuracy. As a tip-based nanofabrication method, the evolution of the STM probe tip, which functionalized as the electrode tool, is of great importance to the machining capability and performance of the STM electric discharge lithography. In this work, both the electrode tool wear (ETW) and the probe tip sharpening phenomena were investigated during the SPM electric discharge lithography of the bulk highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) sample surface. The influence of the electrode tool wear evolution on the machining results was experimentally studied. The geometric parameters of the STM probe tip were measured from SEM imaging. Moreover, the probe tip sharpening phenomenon was specifically observed by applying the negative polarity machining. The evidences of the underlying mechanisms for the tip sharpening effect were revealed experimentally in this study, which have never been reported in the previous work. It is further proved that this effect could be utilized to the in-situ sharpening of the STM probe tip. Finally, the effective methods to improve the machining consistency and the tool lifetime were proposed.