Variable density scanning

摘要

Systems and techniques for varying a scan rate in a measurement instrument. The techniques may be used in scanning probe instruments, including atomic force microscopes (AFMs) and other scanning probe microscopes, as well as profilometers and confocal optical microscopes. This allows the selective imaging of particular regions of a sample surface for accurate measurement of critical dimensions within a relatively small data acquisition time.

主权项

1. A method of controlling a cantilever based scanning instrument that determines information about a surface, comprising:
using the cantilever to characterize and measure information from the surface by driving the cantilever using a dual density data scanning pattern to obtain more data density in a first region of the surface that is scanned by the cantilever, and to obtain less data density in a second region of the surface, where said information about said first and second regions of the surface are obtained from a scan waveform driving the cantilever that drives, the cantilever to obtain more data density for said first region and less data density for said second region during the scan waveform, to obtain an image representing sampled information about the surface which has more data density in said first region and less data density in said second region from said scan waveform; andproducing an output showing said sampled information, where said output provides said more data density in said first region and said less data density in said second region.