A dual probes AFM system with effective tilting angles to achieve high-precision scanning

Lin, Yu Chang; Lo, Yueh-Hsin; Wu, Jyh‐Horng; Liu, Wei-Chih; Fu, Li‐Chen

doi:10.1109/cdc.2014.7040457

Cited by 6 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 12 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…First, we use the optical microscope to adjust the position of each probe coarsely. A detail description for the vertical alignment method of the dual probes is shown in [18]. After we proposed a new method in the paper to achieve higher precision alignment of the two scan units in horizontal direction by using the scan unit I to scan the end of scan unit II, as shown in Fig.…”

Section: A Probe Alignment Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Here, we propose a method of merging the separate scan results, which is capable of paring the scanned data points from respective scan results based on their slope information, has been developed in [18], which can effectively merge the two scanning results in a systematic way. …”

Section: B Tilting Angle Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus, how to merge the data from different scan units is a critical issue. Thence, we propose an algorithm for merging the scanning results in [18], which leads to an objective way to stitch the two scanning results together. Finally, the whole scan process integrated with a new local scan method based theory will be discussed in the following.…”

Section: Dual Probe Scanmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Two previous works from our lab also proposed the local scan strategies based on an optical microscopy [16] and a Lissajous scanning algorithm [17] to save the scan of uninteresting area so that the overall scan time is shortened. This paper is an enhanced version of our previous works [16], [18] about a self-developed dual probe AFM system by combing a raster based local scan strategy. The additional contributions made in this paper are described as follows : (1) a novel alignment method of two probes on the horizontal plane is introduced in Section III(A); (2) the more detailed derivation of the underlying theory about effective tilting angles is revealed in Section III(B); (3) a new raster based local scan strategy is proposed to realize the high-throughput precision scan as shown in Section III(C); (4) all the detailed experimental parameters are revealed in Tables I and II, together with a high density scan result (see Fig.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Effective Tilting Angles for a Dual Probes AFM System to Achieve High-Precision Scanning

Lin

et al. 2016

IEEE/ASME Trans. Mechatron.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Because of the everlasting promotion of micro/nano-fabrication techniques, the measurement of the feature contour of micro/nano-fabricated structures become an important issue. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) is a high accuracy measurement instrument that has been frequently used in measuring of micro/nano-fabricated structures. However, most conventional AFM systems use a single probe with a monotonic tilting angle to scan all kinds of sample profiles. This type of AFM design easily suffers from the so-called "side wall effect", and the scanning result will induce a distortion phenomenon at the corner part. To solve this problem, a novel dual probe AFM system is proposed in this paper. A highly flexible system structure is adopted in this work to create different tilting angle of each probe. With the method developed for obtaining the appropriate tilting angle, we set up the so-called "effective tilting angles" under different scanning scenarios. In addition, a useful merging method has been developed to stitch together the scanning results from two different probes out of two different scanning units. For scanning a standard grating, the error of sidewall angle from the scan image decreases form 27.3 % to 4.5 % when our method is compared with a traditional scan. Finally, by integrating the proposed scan method with a new raster based local scan strategy, we can achieve a high-throughput precision scan. In the scan of human blood cells, we not only can remove unnecessary scan area up to 61.04 % but also can improve sidewall distortion. A comprehensive series of experiments have been conducted to validate the scanning capability of the proposed methods on our self-developed AFM system.

show abstract

Section: A Probe Alignment Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: B Tilting Angle Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Dual Probe Scanmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Effective Tilting Angles for a Dual Probes AFM System to Achieve High-Precision Scanning

Lin

et al. 2016

IEEE/ASME Trans. Mechatron.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Tsunemi et al [16] developed a dual-probes AFM system with two independently controlled probes and proposed an optical-based probe deflection sensing mechanism, which provides an effective way to not only simplify the optical path design for the laser sensors but also eliminate crosstalk caused by the vertical translation of the cantilever. Our lab also [13,18] proposed a dual probes AFM system, which can scan a sample for providing a high precision sidewall image by two probes simultaneous scan. Before manipulation, one of the probes would scan the whole operation area and locate the position of the target object and the other probe.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adaptive tilting angles to achieve high‐precision scanning of a dual probes AFM

Liu

et al. 2018

Asian Journal of Control

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) is a powerful measurement tool, widely used in microfabricated structure inspection. However, since it is typical that the fixed tilting angle of a probe is employed in traditional AFM, the corner and sidewall image of the scanned sample would be distorted. To overcome the problem, a so-called adaptive tilting angle algorithm (ATAA) applied to a self-designed dual-probe AFM system is presented to achieve on-line sidewall estimation during scanning of general samples. Through the use of the proposed ATAA, the tilting angles of dual probes for each scan line can be selfadjusted to the optimal ones. Overall, a probe tilt mechanism is designed, which allows the AFM system to change the tilting angles of the probes during the scanning process such that the dual-probe structure AFM can acquire a complete high precision image with just a single scan. The experimental results show the performance of sidewall measurement and the high-precision image obtained by the proposed method.

show abstract

Advances in the atomic force microscopy for critical dimension metrology

Hussain

Ahmad

Song

2016

Meas. Sci. Technol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Downscaling, miniaturization and 3D staking of the micro/nano devices are burgeoning phenomena in the semiconductor industry which have posed sophisticated challenges in the critical dimension (CD) metrology. Over the past few years, atomic force microscopy (AFM) has emerged as an important CD metrology technique in meeting these challenges because of its high accuracy, 3D imaging capability, high spatial resolution and non-destructive nature. In this article, advances in the AFM based critical dimension (CD) metrology are systematically reviewed and discussed. CD metrology AFM techniques, strengths, limitations and scanning algorithms are described. Developments towards accurate measurements such as creep and hysteresis compensation of the piezoelectric scanners, their calibration and tip characterization are discussed. In addition, image reconstruction and measures for achieving high accuracy CD measurements with hybrid metrology technique are also discussed. CD metrology challenges offered by the next generation lithography (NGL) techniques such as those associated with the 3D nanodevices of 10 nm node and beyond have been highlighted.

show abstract

A dual probes AFM system with effective tilting angles to achieve high-precision scanning

Cited by 6 publications

References 12 publications

Effective Tilting Angles for a Dual Probes AFM System to Achieve High-Precision Scanning

Effective Tilting Angles for a Dual Probes AFM System to Achieve High-Precision Scanning

Adaptive tilting angles to achieve high‐precision scanning of a dual probes AFM

Advances in the atomic force microscopy for critical dimension metrology

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About