The invention is directed at a method of performing scanning probe microscopy on a substrate surface using a scanning probe microscopy system. A probe tip and substrate surface are moved relative to each other in one or more directions parallel to the scanning plane to position the probe tip to a scanning position on the substrate surface with the probe tip; a displacement is measured by an encoder of said probe tip in said one or more directions; and a fiducial pattern is provided fixed relative to the substrate surface, said fiducial pattern having a scannable structure that is scannable by said probe tip and said structure forming a grid of fiducial marks in said one or more dimensions; said grid dimensioned to allow for measuring placement deviations of the probe tip relative to the probe head by identifying one or more fiducial marks in the fiducial pattern.

The invention is directed at a method of performing scanning probe microscopy on a substrate surface using a scanning probe microscopy system. A probe tip and substrate surface are moved relative to each other in one or more directions parallel to the scanning plane to position the probe tip to a scanning position on the substrate surface with the probe tip; a displacement is measured by an encoder of said probe tip in said one or more directions; and a fiducial pattern is provided fixed relative to the substrate surface, said fiducial pattern having a scannable structure that is scannable by said probe tip and said structure forming a grid of fiducial marks in said one or more dimensions; said grid dimensioned to allow for measuring placement deviations of the probe tip relative to the probe head by identifying one or more fiducial marks in the fiducial pattern.

Provided is a method of calibrating a nano measurement scale using a standard material including: measuring widths of a plurality of nanostructures included in the standard material and having pre-designated certified values of different sizes by a microscope; determining measured values for the widths of each of the plurality of nanostructures measured by the microscope based on a predetermined criterion; and calibrating a measurement scale of the microscope based on the certified values and the measured values.

Provided is a method of calibrating a nano measurement scale using a standard material including: measuring widths of a plurality of nanostructures included in the standard material and having pre-designated certified values of different sizes by a microscope; determining measured values for the widths of each of the plurality of nanostructures measured by the microscope based on a predetermined criterion; and calibrating a measurement scale of the microscope based on the certified values and the measured values.

A reference-standard device (20) for calibration of measurements of length, comprising a substrate (10) that includes a surface (10a) having at least one calibration pattern (11). According to the invention, this pattern comprises a plurality of nanometric structures (14), said nanometric structures (14) having one and the same section in the plane of said surface and having the same nanometric dimensions, in particular less than 50 nm, said nanometric structures (14) being arranged at a distance from one another by a constant pitch of nanometric length, in particular less than 50 nm, in at least one direction, said nanometric structures (14) being arranged within spatial regions (12) delimited in one or more directions in the plane of the substrate (10), said nanometric structures (14) being obtained via application to said substrate (10) of a process of nanostructuring (100) by means of a mask of block copolymers in order to make calibrations of measurements of length of the order of nanometres.

A reference-standard device (20) for calibration of measurements of length, comprising a substrate (10) that includes a surface (10a) having at least one calibration pattern (11). According to the invention, this pattern comprises a plurality of nanometric structures (14), said nanometric structures (14) having one and the same section in the plane of said surface and having the same nanometric dimensions, in particular less than 50 nm, said nanometric structures (14) being arranged at a distance from one another by a constant pitch of nanometric length, in particular less than 50 nm, in at least one direction, said nanometric structures (14) being arranged within spatial regions (12) delimited in one or more directions in the plane of the substrate (10), said nanometric structures (14) being obtained via application to said substrate (10) of a process of nanostructuring (100) by means of a mask of block copolymers in order to make calibrations of measurements of length of the order of nanometres.

Systems and methods are disclosed that remove noise from roughness measurements to determine roughness of a feature in a pattern structure. In one embodiment, a method for determining roughness of a feature in a pattern structure includes generating, using an imaging device, a set of one or more images, each including measured linescan information that includes noise. The method also includes detecting edges of the features within the pattern structure of each image without filtering the images, generating a biased power spectral density (PSD) dataset representing feature geometry information corresponding to the edge detection measurements, evaluating a high-frequency portion of the biased PSD dataset to determine a noise model for predicting noise over all frequencies of the biased PSD dataset, and subtracting the noise predicted by the determined noise model from a biased roughness measure to obtain an unbiased roughness measure.

Systems and methods are disclosed that remove noise from roughness measurements to determine roughness of a feature in a pattern structure. In one embodiment, a method for determining roughness of a feature in a pattern structure includes generating, using an imaging device, a set of one or more images, each including measured linescan information that includes noise. The method also includes detecting edges of the features within the pattern structure of each image without filtering the images, generating a biased power spectral density (PSD) dataset representing feature geometry information corresponding to the edge detection measurements, evaluating a high-frequency portion of the biased PSD dataset to determine a noise model for predicting noise over all frequencies of the biased PSD dataset, and subtracting the noise predicted by the determined noise model from a biased roughness measure to obtain an unbiased roughness measure.

The present invention relates to a method for examining a measuring tip of a scanning probe microscope, wherein the method includes the following steps: (a) generating at least one test structure before a sample is analyzed, or after said sample has been analyzed, by the measuring tip; and (b) examining the measuring tip with the aid of the at least one generated test structure.

Methods for calibration of non-contact velocity measurements and systems for implementing the same are described. Generally, the method comprises inducing a shock wave into a sample at a stress intensity that varies across the sample's elastic limit, which corresponds to the elastic-plastic state transition of the sample. That transition state may be at the sample's Hugoniot elastic limit. The velocity of the sample is measured using a non-contact velocity measurement instrument such as a velocimeter. The measurement may be compared to a predicted velocity or a velocity measurement made by another system to determine calibration parameters.