Experimental Study on Micro/Nano-Machining of Highly Oriented Pyrolitic Graphite

We experimentally addressed the micro/nano-machining of highlyoriented pyrolitic graphite (HOPG), an electronic base material with increasing importance for fabrication of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) devices, because of its favorable properties, including solid-state super-lubricity and high corrosion-resistance against strong chemicals. The impact of the micro/nano-machining conditions in routine MEMS fabrication, including SiO₂ film deposition, lithography and etching, on the quality and stability of the micro/nano-structures was investigated. The results show that the MEMS fabrication processes work well under the optimized conditions. For example, the high quality SiO₂ films, grown by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition on HOPG substrate satisfied well the stringent requirements of lithography and etching. A variety of arrays with well-defined stable micro/nanostructures were regularly fabricated on fairly large scale by conventional lithography and etching. We suggest that the newly-developed micro/nano-machining of graphite be of some technological interest in MEMS device fabrication.