Pacific Nanotechnology Inc.

Applications for atomic force microscopes

General

Applications for atomic force microscopes include the visualization and measurement of surface features having nanometer sized dimensions in research and development laboratories as well as process control environments. Specific applications include:

Nanostructures:

This 1µm × 1µm image is of GaAs spheres measuring 30 nm in diameter. This image was measured in "Close-Contact" mode. The Pacific Nanotechnology AFM products are well suited for measuring many types of nanostructures such as carbon nanotubes.

Polymer Materials:

This high resolution image (1.5 µm × 1.5 µm) of the triblock copolymer film: styrene-butadiene-styrene (SBS) was measured with the "material sensing" mode. This mode gives contrast on samples that have varying surface hardness.

Coated Quartz Structures - Click here for Full Applications Note.

a) Coated quartz sphere

With the high resolution video optic on the Pacific Nanotechnology AFM it is possible to place the AFM probe directly at the top of a coated quartz sphere. With the AFM it is then possible to directly measure defects at the top of the quartz sphere.

b) Coated Quartz Substrate

AFM image of streptavidin on a fused quartz substrate. The right image is a zoomed in view (2.3 µm × 2.3 µm) of the image at the left (10 µm × 10 µm). These images were measured in ambient air with the "close contact" mode..

c) Microfabricated Patterns

This image is of a semiconductor test pattern measured with the Pacific Nanotechnology AFM system. The tables below show test results for the X-Y and Z accuracy that is typical of AFM scan heads that have external calibration sensors.

X-Y Linearity

X-Y linearity measurements were made on a VLSI standard with a 3 µm pitch. The measurements were made on groups of 3, 14 and 30 structures in the horizontal and vertical directions. The "measured" column is the average of two measurements.

# of Structures	Sample Specs. (µm)	Measured (µm)	Error (%)
30	89.94 ± 0.78	89.95	0.01
14	41.97 ± 0.36	41.95	0.05
3	8.994 ± .078	8.95	0.49

Z Linearity

Linearity of the Z calibration sensor is established by making measurements on three VLSI standards. Height measurements were collected from the histogram display in the Pacific Nanotechnology image analysis software.

Sample Specs. (µm)	Measured (µm)	Error (%)
940	934	-0.64
180.1 ± 2.0	179	-0.61
18.2 ± 1.1	19.1	-4.95