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New Product: Veeco cuts cost and complexity of AFM adoption
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Product Briefing Outline: Veeco Instruments has its new ‘Dimension Icon’ AFM, which the company claims delivers the highest resolution, best ease-of-use, and fastest time-to-results of any large-sample AFM on the market today. The Dimension Icon is said to brings new levels of performance, ease and productivity to researchers using AFM that meets the needs of both the research lab and industrial applications. The tool is designed to perform analysis ranging from quantitative automated characterization to atomic scale imaging across material science, semiconductor, data storage, and energy research.
Problem: A major goal behind the creation of the Icon was to lower the barrier to entry for high-level AFM research, and to bring this technology into the mainstream of microscopy.
Solution: Many of the Dimension Icon AFM’s new features are engineered specifically to enhance technical performance while simultaneously increasing usability and productivity for both new and expert AFM users. The system utilizes a new XYZ closed-loop head that scans at high-speed rates while delivering low drift and low noise. These features combine to cut stabilization times, allowing the system to acquire artifact-free data in much less time than is possible with any competing AFM on the market, according to the company. A new high-resolution camera and integrated feedback alignment tools deliver faster probe positioning and sample navigation, allowing users to more easily locate features of interest. Finally, the redesigned software offers an intuitive workflow and default experiment modes that distill advanced AFM processes into preconfigured settings.
Applications: Replaces destructive cross-sectioning techniques, reducing etch measurement turnaround from days to minutes. It is claimed to be the world's only AFM single-tool fab solution designed for chemical mechanical planarization and etch metrology at 65nm.
Platform: Exclusive ‘TappingMode’ operation enables nondestructive measurement of high-aspect-ratio features.
Availability: February 2009 onwards.