Abstract
We present a large area high-speed measuring system capable of rapidly generating nanometre resolution scanning probe microscopy data over mm2 regions. The system combines a slow moving but accurate large area XYZ scanner with a very fast but less accurate small area XY scanner. This arrangement enables very large areas to be scanned by stitching together the small, rapidly acquired, images from the fast XY scanner while simultaneously moving the slow XYZ scanner across the region of interest. In order to successfully merge the image sequences together two software approaches for calibrating the data from the fast scanner are described. The first utilizes the low uncertainty interferometric sensors of the XYZ scanner while the second implements a genetic algorithm with multiple parameter fitting during the data merging step of the image stitching process. The basic uncertainty components related to these high-speed measurements are also discussed. Both techniques are shown to successfully enable high-resolution, large area images to be generated at least an order of magnitude faster than with a conventional atomic force microscope.
Highlights
There is an increasing demand from manufacturing industries for dimensional measurements of surfaces with nanometre precision over ranges from a few square micrometres to several square centimetres
These operate at tip-sample velocities in the order of mm s−1 to cm s−1 and are developed to overcome the challenges of imaging the fast dynamic behaviour of delicate biological samples [12,13,14]. These devices operate hundreds and thousands of times faster than conventional Scanning probe microscopy (SPM) and generate tens to thousands of whole images per second [15]. It is this large throughput of pixels, incomparable to conventional SPMs, that makes it interesting to consider the metrological properties of such instruments and to investigate the possibility of converting them into high accuracy and high-speed devices capable of overcoming the challenge of providing nanometre precision across mm2 and cm2 areas
In this article we describe the combination of an interferometer based large area XYZ positioning stage (NMM-1 by SIOS, Germany) [4] with a high-speed SPM XY scanner
Summary
There is an increasing demand from manufacturing industries for dimensional measurements of surfaces with nanometre precision over ranges from a few square micrometres to several square centimetres. One successful route to reducing imaging times is to perform measurements using an adaptive stepping algorithm to produce non-equidistant sampling points (i.e. varying data density) that correspond to the sample features of interest [9, 10] This approach is suitable only for certain types of samples, such as terraced steps on flat regions and for the majority of surfaces that are examined using atomic force microscope (AFM) adaptive stepping does not provide a significant reduction of time necessary for a scan. These devices operate hundreds and thousands of times faster than conventional SPMs and generate tens to thousands of whole images per second [15] It is this large throughput of pixels, incomparable to conventional SPMs, that makes it interesting to consider the metrological properties of such instruments and to investigate the possibility of converting them into high accuracy and high-speed devices capable of overcoming the challenge of providing nanometre precision across mm and cm areas
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