Improvement of the LNE’s metrological Atomic Force Microscope (mAFM) performance: Design of new mAFM head dedicated for nanometrology applications

A metrological Atomic Force Microscope (mAFM) has been developed at LNE [1, 2]. It is mainly used for performing traceable measurement and calibration of transfer standards dedicated to scanning probe and scanning electron microscopes. In order to improve the mAFM performance and reduce the measurement uncertainty, a new mAFM head is being developed and will be integrated on the instrument. It consists of an immobile AFM head working in a zero detection mode. The head is kinematically mounted on the stationary part of a home-made piezo-actuated flexure stage that produces three translations with a displacement range of60 μm along X and Y axes and 15 μm along Z axis. The tip-sample relative position is measured with four dual pass differential interferometers with an expected uncertainty of about 1 nm. This paper presents the design of new mAFM and the evaluation of the first uncertainty components of the instrument