Trilayer cantilevers · KPFM

Conductive Trilayer Cantilever Probes

Silicon Nitride-Polymer AFM probes for KPFM/C-AFM

General description

The Trilayer Cantilevers (TLC) feature a unique structure of silicon nitride films and a polymer core, enabling increased thickness without excessive stiffness. This significantly amplifies force sensitivity (μV/nN), surpassing standard single-crystalline Si cantilevers by a factor of 4. Due to the low Q-factor of less than 250 (even in a vacuum), the TLC enables scanning speeds up to 10x faster than those achievable with Si or SiN-CL.

Additionally, the electrical insulation of electronic sensors within the SiN/Polymer interface ensures robustness and reliability even in harsh conditions. The tip is coated with 100 nm Pt metal and connected to an external signal enabling the use of TLCs for conductive AFM (C-AFM) and KPFM applications.

Applications

Kelvin Probe Force Microscopy (KPFM)
Conductive AFM (C-AFM) and electrical probing
Integration on standard AFM scanner, high-speed AFM
Force or deflection measurements

What about your application?

TLC-L220-F80-KPFM-PCB: Specifications

Parameter	Value
Model	TLC-L220-F80-KPFM-PCB
Material	SiN shell with polymer core
Tip material	Silicon
Pt metal coating	On the chip body and on the tip
Modes	Static and dynamic modes
Deflection sensing	On-chip piezoresistive bridge
Actuator	External shaker (or upon request: on-chip heater)
Electrical connections	Bonded to small PCB with connector (counterpart PCB available) or delivered as bare chip (bonding pads on-chip)