Bruker Nabs NIST Contract for AFM

Bruker has announced that it has been awarded a $1.1 million contract to supply a customized N8 Titanos large-sample atomic force microscope (AFM) to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The instrument will be used by NIST’s Precision Engineering Div. (PED) at its Manufacturing Engineering Laboratory, with a main focus on metrology applications that require traceable AFM (T-AFM).

Bruker’s N8 Titanos offers improved spatial resolving power and outstanding mechanical stability for wafer samples up to 300 mm in diameter. (Image: Business Wire)

The T-AFM instrument will provide fundamental nanoscale metrology for NIST, which serves customers in industries such as semiconductor manufacturing, optics and photonics, data storage, and biomedical. The instrument will be installed at NIST’s Gaithersburg, Maryland, facilities, and will be used to measure various parameters such as height, pitch surface roughness and line-width roughness. A requirement is on-board metrology traceable to the SI (International System of Units) definition of the meter, which is implemented through laser interferometry using 633-nm wavelength iodine-stabilized HeNe lasers in all three axes.

“We are looking forward to NIST’s PED benefitting from various recent additional improvements to the performance of the N8 Titanos,” said Dr. Hans-Achim Fuss, Bruker Nano’s chief technology officer for AFM. “The even further increased stability of the system is designed to provide traceable AFM results of highest accuracy and precision.”

Bruker’s next generation N8 Titanos, which was announced in December 2009, is designed to provide highest stability and precision in surface measuring applications down to atomic resolution. The device’s single-plane architecture with rigid granite base provides significant advantages over multicomponent metal translation systems. According to the company, the system can accommodate samples of up to 300 mm × 300 mm size and can be equipped with additional inspection techniques, such as optical microscopy. Its AFM performance with lowest noise level (rms (Z) < 0.05 nm) can provide highest-quality results for metrology measurements.

“Bruker Nano has many years of experience in traceable AFM for metrology purposes,” said Dr. Frank Saurenbach, the company’s vice president for AFM. “We have already supplied a similar instrument to the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt – NIST’s German counterpart. This system has been in service for six years, providing excellent results. We are delighted to have won this important NIST order, demonstrating Bruker’s ability to design and manufacture highest performance AFM products.”

For more information, visit: www.bruker.com