System Calibration Towards Automated Nanomanipulation Inside Scanning Electron Microscope

This paper presented the calibration of the nanorobotic manipulator inside Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). Repeating movement is frequently happing to reach the predetermined position and in order to realize the automated nanomanipulation inside SEM, the errors of the nanomanipultor and the system must be analyzed. A series of experiments based on SEM image feedback were conducted and the end-effectors can characterize the relationship of the two axis. An atomic force microscope (AFM) cantilever was assembled on the top of the nanorobotic manipulator, which moved straightly along the X or Y axis under stable speed. Through SEM video stream, a image processing method was used to analyze the errors of the nanomanipultor and the thermal drift of the encoder. The movement of nanomanipultor presented the good linearity and the error between the platform and the image coordinates were deteced. The slope of the x-direction is less than 1.7 degrees and the slope of the y-direction is less than 0.8 degrees. The nanomanipultor corrected his own track until the drift error is accumulated to 260 nm.