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The project

Nanotechnology is recognised by the EU as a Key Enabling Technology and can aid verification of product performance in industry. High-speed scanning probe microscopy has the potential to identify and classify faults in nanodevices, reducing waste products. Conventional scanning probe microscopy is often time consuming and lacks the positioning accuracy provided by novel high-speed scanning stages.

Completed EMPIR project Traceability of localised functional properties of nanostructures with high speed scanning probe microscopy (20IND08, MetExSPM) developed and implemented new methods for high-speed atomic force microscopy measurements data processing and characterisation of the instruments providing traceability to the measurement results and ,thus, improving the reliability of the measurements.

Good practice guide

The project published a Good practice guide on the metrological methods used to validate/characterise the performance of probes, scanning stages and software tools and to characterise the performance of HS-SPM including uncertainty estimations for positioning uncertainty of 1 nm.

In this guide, the validation methods for essential parts of an atomic force microscopic (AFM) instrument are explained. It includes the characterisation of active probes, high speed large stroke stages, as well as validation of the measurement software.

In addition, the characterisation and calibration methods for AFM instruments as a whole are explained. The methods can be applied to many different types of AFMs, or more generally scanning probe microscopes including commercially available and custom instruments.

This guide will be useful to industry sectors such as semiconductor and advanced manufacturing.

Additional areas of impact

• The instruments developed or improved in the project have significantly improved the measurement capabilities for pitch and step-height calibration by AFMs at the National Measurement Institutes VTT (Finland), CMI (Czechia), GUM (Poland) and PTB (Germany).
• The active probes developed in the project are available for customers.
• The methods for data analysis are implemented to Gwyddion software package.
• The Gwyscope, an open-source platform to which high-speed data processing algorithms were added, has been made available for a company. It is also mentioned in Thorlabs website as an example of extended use of Thorlabs Educational AFM. 
• The hybrid combination of three stages (a three-axes and six-axes piezo stage and a magnetic levitation (MagLev) stage), can be used in other applications in need of high speed and high accuracy.
• Two patents relating to the active probes were disclosed, and one is in preparation.
• The project’s results were delivered in the Nanoscale 2023 conference

The uptake of project results on an industrial scale is expected to improve the EU’s global competitiveness in nanotechnology, underpinning the metrological needs, for example, of the EU legislation of nanomaterials. Quality control in the semiconductor, nanomaterial, nano-bioscience and nano-photonics industries is also improved.

Project coordinator Virpi Korpelainen from VTT said

‘The project was both challenging and successful. All the project developments can also be applied to other applications, and they are either commercially or freely available to end users.’

This EMPIR project is co-funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and the EMPIR Participating States

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