General description
The Nanoworld Services GmbH, founded in August 2001, specialises in the fabrication and development of micro technological products, based on semiconductor fabrication methods. Nanoworld Services produces the well-established NanoSensors ™ silicon sensors for scanning probe microscopy. At the same time several research and development activities focus on the development of novel probes for the scanning force microscopy. The headquarters as well as the main fabrication is located in Erlangen, Germany. Due to a co-operation agreement with the Fraunhofer Institute Integrated Systems and Device Technology (FhG IISB) Nanoworld Services Erlangen has access to a class 10 clean room with a fully equipped CMOS semiconductor fabrication line.

Role in the project
The work of Nanoworld will focus on the development of the novel scanning probes with functionalised tips as an essential component of novel instrumentation for the characterization and manipulation on the nanometer scale. For the integration of advanced sensing components into the tips of a scanning probe System a bottom-up approach based on the well-established fabrication procedures for silicon-AFM-probes will be followed to realise signal transmission lines, shieldings and especially tailored or modified tip shapes. This work will be supplemented by the nanoscale modification carried out by the Fraunhofer Institute of Integrated Systems and Device Technology. The novelty of this approach is the combination of the unrivalled experience of a long-standing commercial fabrication of scanning probes present at Nanoworld with the sophisticated nanoscale modification methods based on focussed electron- and ion beams available at the Fraunhofer Institute. This perfect complementation will generate real breakthroughs in the development of chemically and physically sensitive scanning probes with unsurpassed resolution in the lower nanometer regime.

www.nanoworld-services.com