Enhanced Capabilities of the NIST Fiber Probe for Microfeature Metrology

Published

January 1, 2006

Author(s)

Bala Muralikrishnan, Jack A. Stone Jr., John R. Stoup

Abstract

We have previously reported work in the area of fiber probe development at NIST for micro feature measurement. This probe, which we refer to as the Fiber Deflection Probe, functions by optically imaging the stem from two orthogonal directions a few millimeters away from the ball end of the fiber. The probe is well characterized and has demonstrated performance at the sub 50 nm level for diameter measurements. This probe was essentially used as a 2D probe and also only in touch trigger mode. We have since extended the capability of the probe to full 3D measurements and have also made profile measurements in touch-trigger and pseudo-scanning mode. We describe these enhancements in this paper. 3D capability: Along the Z direction, the fiber buckles upon contacting the part. Because the fiber buckles by large amount for a very small displacement along Z, our probe is actually much more sensitive along Z than along X or Y. We therefore achieve full 3D capability by measuring the shift in fiber position due to the buckle. We have measured hemispheres where the pole point is measured using the buckling technique while the other points are measured using deflection technique. Profiling: We have made profile measurements on gage block surfaces in touch-trigger mode (the fiber leaves the surface before each sampling point) and also in pseudo-scanning mode (dragging on the surface   we refer to the method as pseudo-scanning because the fiber and gage block are stationary during the imaging process). Because the fiber adheres to the surface, it is not possible to obtain horizontal profiles in pseudo-scanning mode. We have therefore investigated the use of vibration assisted scanning where the fiber is acoustically excited to resonance during the motion of the probe from one sampling location to the next. We have obtained profiles using vibration assisted scanning whose straightness values are in excellent agreement with those obtained using touch trigger mode.

Proceedings Title

Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Precision Engineering 2006

Conference Dates

October 1, 2006

Conference Location

Monterey, CA, USA

Conference Title

Annual Meeting of the American Society for Precision Engineering 2006

Pub Type

Conferences

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Keywords

CMM, dimensional metrology, fiber buckling, fiber probe, profiling

Citation

Muralikrishnan, B. , Stone Jr., J. and Stoup, J. (2006), Enhanced Capabilities of the NIST Fiber Probe for Microfeature Metrology, Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Precision Engineering 2006, Monterey, CA, USA, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=823213 (Accessed April 20, 2024)