Nanoscale 2013

Abstract

The accurate determination of the properties of micro- and nano-structures is essential in research and development. It is also a prerequisite in process control and quality assurance in industry. In most cases, especially at the nanometer range, knowledge of the dimensional properties of structures is the fundamental base, to which further physical properties are linked. Quantitative measurements presuppose reliable and stable instruments, suitable measurement procedures as well as calibration artifacts and methods.This special issue of Measurement Science and Technology presents selected contributions from the NanoScale 2013 seminar held in Paris, France, on 25 and 26 April. It was the 6th Seminar on NanoScale Calibration Standards and Methods and the 10th Seminar on Quantitative Microscopy (the first being held in 1995). The seminar was jointly organized with the Nanometrology Group of the Technical Committee–Length of EURAMET, the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt and the Laboratoire National de Métrologie et d’Essais.Three satellite meetings related to nanometrology were coupled to the seminar. The first one was an open Symposium on Scanning Probe Microscopy Standardization organized by the ISO/TC 201/SC9 technical committee. The two others were specific meetings focused on two European Metrology Research Projects funded by the European Association of National Metrology Institutes (EURAMET) (see www.euramet.org), the first one focused on the improvement of the traceability for high accuracy devices dealing with sub-nm length measurement and implementing optical interferometers or capacitive sensors (JRP SIB08 subnano), the second one aiming to develop a new metrological traceability for the measurement of the mechanical properties of nano-objects (JRP NEW05 MechProNo).More than 100 experts from industry, calibration laboratories and metrology institutes from around the world joined the NanoScale 2013 Seminar to attend 23 oral and 64 poster presentations. From these contributions, 22 are included as articles in this special issue of Measurement Science and Technology . They cover some novel scientific results that are representative of the topics currently being investigated in the field of European and world-wide nanometrology.Half of the articles presented in this special issue are linked to a quantitative use of atomic force microscopes (AFM) and related techniques. This is not surprising since atomic force microscopy with scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and scatterometry are the most used techniques to practice metrology at the nanometer scale. The presented developments around AFM mainly concern solutions to improve its performance, such as for example by increasing the scanning speed using dynamic control, its measurement range by using long-range AFM and even by automatically replacing the tip with 10 nm repositioning. The search for a better traceability is still on-going and a comparison of SEM and AFM organized in the Northern Europe research institutes illustrates this question well.But nowadays measurement on advanced product structures requires 3D capabilities. This can be achieved by using a new type of tilting AFM or more dedicated critical dimension (CD) AFMs that will use specific tips whose cantilever is sensitive in three dimensions. A perfect illustration of this are the results presented for the measurement of CD and sidewall on EUV photomasks.Calibration of the cantilever spring constant is still carried on and two papers present the latest developments. Finally, as past Nanoscale issues have witnessed, scanning probe microscopes are more and more used for metrological applications where the quantities to be measured are no longer dimensional, for example, thermal conductivity on delaminated thin films using a scanning thermal microscope, the carrier concentration on CIGS solar cells using a scanning capacitance microscope (SCM) or the surface potential measured by a Kelvin probe microscope. But in all cases, what these special developments share is a metrological approach, and for the sole purpose of being traceable to the SI units.All these topics are addressed in this special issue and we hope you will enjoy the reading. As the production of this issue involved considerable effort from many contributors, we would like to thank all the authors for their contributions, the referees for their time spent reviewing the contributions and their very valuable comments, and the whole Editorial Board of Measurement Science and Technology for their support.