Improvement of the scanning area positioning repeatability using nanomarkers developed with a nanoscratching method

Abstract

A sophisticated experiment requiring multiple micrometer-scale scanning of the same area of a sample may be performed easily if special positioning features on the surface are available. A set of nanomarkers developed using a nanoscratching technique can provide an efficient, submicron-accurate solution allowing us to investigate various phenomena. In this paper, the analysis of the roughness estimation repeatability is presented in terms of defining the accuracy of the area of interest. The obtained results confirmed the possibility of the repeatable positioning of the sample in an atomic force microscope, providing area roughness determination repeatability with a standard distribution smaller than 3%. As an example, the observation of light-caused surface degradation is presented. Also, the utilization of nanomarkers in determining the magnetic domain's rearrangement angle with an accuracy better than 0.5° is shown.

Investigation of the impact of simulated solar radiation on the micro- and nanoscale morphology and mechanical properties of a sheet moulded composite surface

“…One has to be aware that significant variations of certain properties due to the local inhomogeneities of material can become an obstacle during the measurements while the abovementioned methods are utilized. However, the issue of precise positioning was efficiently solved, as so called nanomarkers allow us to perform various measurements in the same area of interest, providing highly reliable experimental outcome [10][11][12][13].…”

Structural and morphological studies of manganese-based cathode materials for lithium ion batteries

“…6 and Fig. 7) show the topography, the Sobel transform of the topography providing better visibility of the details [35][36][37][38], the stiffness and the adhesion maps. It must be underlined, that the mechanical properties maps show the results in arbitrary units, it is however sufficient for the interpretation.…”

“…The olivine vibrations (Fig. 9) are classified as internal (related to the modes of PO 4 tetrahedra) and external ones [38,39]. The internal modes correspond to the PO 4 tetrahedron oscillations assigned as ν 1 , ν 2 , ν 3 and ν 4 according to Herzberg's notation [41].…”

High Accuracy and Sensitivity Method of the Observation of the Surface’s Morphology Changes by Means of Atomic Force Microscopy with Cyclic, Precise Sample Positioning

“…Therefore in many works, single or very few measurements were used to calculate the roughness changes [5,8,[10][11][12][13]. Among few works investigating the degradation process, and showing the gradual roughness changes, one could notice rather monotonic behavior, visible as the increase of S a or S q parameters [13,[19][20]. Some works, however, reported much more complex degradation phenomena [6,10,21].…”

“…In such a case, it is difficult to compare the morphology changes if the measurement results are spatially incoherent (in other wordsmade at randomly chosen coordinates). In order to solve this problem, the method of acquisition of set of scans at certain spots of the sample at each cycle of the sample exposition to the certain media was proposed (figure 1) [15,[19][20][21]. As the result, the roughness comparison refers to this same area providing the most reliable information.…”