Atomic force microscopy for next generation metrology of surfaces

用于下一代表面计量的原子力显微镜

• 批准号: 2837180
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Sheffield
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2022 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2837180
• 关键词: Atomic; force; microscopy; next; generation

The aim of this project is to understand how tip bending affects image quality in atomic force microscopy (AFM) and develop new approaches to correct the errors caused. AFM uses a sharp tip attached to a flexible cantilever to trace out the surface of a sample and form an image. The sharp tip allows very small (down to sub-nanometre, less than a billionth of a metre) features on the surface to be sensed, and attaching the tip to a flexible cantilever allows the signal to be detected using a conventional laser. AFM is an established critical tool for nano-surface-metrology. Modern AFM tips have high aspect ratio (i.e. thin and sharp), and we have recently shown that this means the tip itself tends to bend when imaging surfaces. Unfortunately, using the conventional approach to AFM, if the tip bends, we no longer know which part of the surface we are imaging, and the picture we obtain is distorted. For industrial metrology purposes, and for scientific research, this creates an important source of error, up to tens of nanometres, which has largely been overlooked. Using an approach we recently developed the student will build a full understanding of the bending induced error in both conventional samples and when imaging silicon chips (with Infinitesima). The student will then explore how to fully characterise tip bending during imaging so that the true surface topography can be revealed.

该项目的目的是了解针尖弯曲如何影响原子力显微镜（AFM）的图像质量，并开发新的方法来纠正所造成的误差。原子力显微镜使用一个锋利的尖端连接到一个灵活的悬臂描绘出样品的表面，并形成一个图像。尖锐的尖端允许表面上非常小的特征（低至亚纳米，小于十亿分之一米）被感测，将尖端连接到柔性悬臂上可以使用传统激光检测信号。原子力显微镜（AFM）是纳米表面测量的重要工具。现代AFM针尖具有高纵横比（即薄而尖锐），我们最近表明，这意味着针尖本身在成像表面时倾向于弯曲。不幸的是，使用传统的AFM方法，如果针尖弯曲，我们就不再知道我们正在成像的是表面的哪一部分，我们获得的图像就会失真。对于工业计量和科学研究来说，这是一个重要的误差来源，高达数十纳米，这在很大程度上被忽视了。使用我们最近开发的一种方法，学生将建立在传统样品和成像硅芯片（与Infinitesima）时弯曲引起的误差的全面理解。然后，学生将探索如何在成像过程中完全消除尖端弯曲，以便揭示真实的表面形貌。