HIGH-SPEED, LARGE-SCALE IMAGING WITH THE ATOMIC FORCE MICROSCOPE

The atomic force microscope (AFM) can be used to generate both images and height profiles of samples with micron-sized features, combining the resolution and speed of the scanning electron microscope and the height information of the stylus profilometer. We have increased the scan speed of our AFM so that these images may be taken in real time, allowing the operator to interact easily with the microscope parameters. The increased scan speed does not noticeably degrade the images. The resulting images contain complete height information, allowing height profiles to be extracted. In this paper, we present images taken in this manner as well as discuss some of the nonideal characteristics of the AFM, such as tip-shape artifacts, tip contamination, sample damage, and scanner nonlinearities.