Canticlever - Planar fabrication of probes for magnetic imaging

Magnetic force microscopy (MFM) is a scanning probe technique that is used to generate a high–resolution image of stray fields above a magnetic thin film, with very little sample preparation. This makes the MFM the instrument of choice for the analysis of bit patterns in hard disks. The tremendous increase in data density of magnetic storage systems has pushed the bit size down into the nanometer range, close to the maximum resolution of current MFM’s. This resolution, which is currently limited by the geometry of the magnetic tip, has to be improved, or the hard disk research community will loose a very powerful imaging technique. In this thesis a new probe for magnetic microscopy and recording, called the CantiClever, is presented. This probe is designed to address the issue of the tip geometry of conventional MFM tips. The new probe also allows for integration of other sensors besides an MFM tip with relative ease due to its planar fabrication process.