Surface Topographic Measurement Using Piezo-Electrical PVDF Film Stylus

Abstract

A novel piezo-PVDF (Polyvinilidene Fluoride) film stylus has been developed to scan the surface topography for non-destructive and high-step measurement. The operating mechanism of the piezo-PVDF film stylus is similar to that of tapping mode SPMs. Instead of silicon cantilever often used in SPMs, a thin strip of piezo-PVDF film is adopted to form the vibrating cantilever here. Due to the flexibility of the PVDF film and the tapping mode, the scratching force is very small and non-destructive measurement is realized. By experimental measurements, a maximum error and a standard deviation along vertical axis are about 2.0nm and 0.5nm respectively. During an actual measurement on an epoxy grating using the measurement system with the single PVDF stylus, the repetability is proven to be within 4.3nm.