Shortened and simplified traceability chain for dimensional metrology based on self-traceable standards

作者：Deng Xiao, Zhijun Yin, Gaoliang Dai, Guangxu Xiao, Zhaohui Tang, Junyu Shen, Tong Zhou, Dongbai Xue, Yuying Xie, Chunling He, Xiong Dun, Lingyun Xie, Xinbin Cheng, Tongbao Li · 发表于：Measurement Science and Technology · 年份：2024 · DOI：10.1088/1361-6501/ad70d1 · 被引用次数：21 · 研究领域：Advanced Measurement and Metrology Techniques、Optical measurement and interference techniques、Surface Roughness and Optical Measurements

Abstract Nanoscale measurement is an essential task of nanomanufacturing, and measurement traceability is a fundamental aspect of nanoscale measurement. High-precision nanoscale measurement instruments (e.g. atomic force microscopes (AFM) and scanning electron microscopes (SEM)) need to be calibrated by traceable standards to ensure their accuracy and reliability. However, due to the suboptimal accuracy, uniformity, and consistency of existing standards, they need to be calibrated by metrological instruments traceable to primary length standards (e.g. physical wavelength standards) before use. This results in a long traceability chain that leads to error accumulation and significantly reduces calibration efficiency. This paper proposes a novel shortened and simplified traceability chain, where the physical wavelength standard corresponding to the 7 S 3 → 7 P 4 ° transition frequency of chromium atoms is materialized into self-traceable gratings using the atom lithography technology. The self-traceable gratings can then be directly applied for calibrating measurement instruments. To verify this approach, the self-traceable gratings are calibrated using a metrological AFM of the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt. Measurement results confirmed the feasibility of the approach. Particularly, our results show that the self-traceable gratings have excellent uniformity over different measurement areas and consistency over different samples, both at 0.001 nm level. Finally, the ap...