An Instrument for Calibrating Atomic Force Microscope Standards

Published

May 1, 1994

Author(s)

J Schneir, T Mcwaid, Theodore V. Vorburger

Abstract

To facilitate the use of AFMs for manufacturing we have initiated a project to develop and calibrate artifacts which can in turn be used to calibrate a commercial AFM so that subsequent AFM measurement are accurate and traceable back to the wavelength of light. We plan to calibrate our artifacts using a specially designed AFM system which we call the Calibrated AFM (C-AFM). The C-AFM has been constructed as much as possible out of commercially available components. We use a flexure stage driven by piezoelectric transducers for scanning; a heterodyne interferometer to measure the X-Y position of the sample; a capacitance sensor to measure the Z position of the sample; and a commercially available AFM control system. The control system has two feedback loops which read from the X and Y interferometers, respectively, and adjust the piezoelectric voltages to keep the X-Y scan position accurate. The critical electromechanical and metrology issues involved in the construction and operation of such a system are discussed in detail.

Proceedings Title

Proceedings of SPIE

Volume

2196

Conference Dates

March 2, 1994

Conference Location

San Jose, CA, USA

Conference Title

Integrated Circuit Metrology, Inspection, and Process Control VIII, Marylyn H. Bennett, Editor May 1994

Pub Type

Conferences

Citation

Schneir, J. , Mcwaid, T. and Vorburger, T. (1994), An Instrument for Calibrating Atomic Force Microscope Standards, Proceedings of SPIE, San Jose, CA, USA (Accessed February 21, 2026)