Part II - Instruments and measurement techniques of three-dimensional surface topography

Abstract

This chapter reviews the state-of-the-art in instruments and techniques for the quantitative measurement of three-dimensional (3-D) surface topography. Particular attention is given to those instruments that are not normally presented in academic papers, but are commercially available and widely used in science, engineering, and industry. Also included are the very promising instruments available in optical and electronic engineering (optical interferometry), and the most effective ones used in material and biological science investigations (scanning electron and scanning tunneling microscopes). Different from other reviews on surface measurement, the emphasis of the work described is mainly concentrated on the mechanism of realizing 3-D measurement and its quantitative assessment. Constructions and measurement principles of different instruments, their characteristics, including measurement resolution, range and speed, and applied conditions are introduced. Recently, the measurement of surface topography has evolved in two promising directions: precision measurement and 3-D measurement. The former has led to the possibility of atomic size measurement and the latter has resulted in a dramatic change of measurement of surface topography. It is believed that the future development of instruments will be mainly concentrated on enlarging the ratio of range to resolution and increasing the ability to minimize the influence of ambient environment so as to achieve in-process 3-D measurement rather than simply increasing resolution.