Fabrication of Silicon Nanowire Probe with Magnet for Magnetic Resonance Force Microscopy

Silicon nanowires have attracted considerable attention due to their excellent mechanical and electrical properties and widely investigated for various applications. One of the exciting applications is magnetic resonance force microscopy (MRFM), which requires a high sensitive probe for three-dimensional imaging of spin densities. In this study, we have fabricated a 160 nm-wide and 52 µm-long Si nanowire probe with a Si mirror and Ni magnet from a silicon-on-insulator wafer. The nanowire is suitable structure as the probe for a detection of MRFM. The probe shows a resonance frequency of 8.007 kHz and a Q factor of approximately 5000. Two-dimensional force mapping based on electron spin resonance has been demonstrated using the fabricated nanowire probe.