Fast atomic force microscopy with self-transduced, self-sensing cantilever

The conventional optical lever detection technique involves optical components and their precise mechanical alignment. An additional technical limit is the weight of the optical system in cases where a top-scanner is used with high-speed and high-precision metrology. An alternative represents the application of self-actuated atomic force microscopy (AFM) cantilevers with integrated two-dimensional electron gas (2-DEG) piezoresistive deflection sensors. A significant improvement in the performance of such cantilevers with respect to deflection sensitivity and temperature stability has been achieved by using an integrated Wheatstone bridge configuration. Due to employing effective crosstalk isolation and temperature drift compensation, the performance of these cantilevers was significantly improved. In order to enhance the speed of AFM measurements, we present an adaptive scanning speed procedure. Examples of AFM measurements with a high scanning speed (up to 200 lines/s) committed to advanced lithography process development are shown. (C) 2015 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)