Atomic force microscope scanning head with 3-dimensional orthogonal scanning to eliminate the curved coupling.

An atomic force microscopy (AFM) scanning head is designed with the probe orthogonal scanning mode for metrological AFM to eliminate the curvature distortion. The AFM probe is driven by piezostage and the scanning trajectory of the probe in 3 directions are orthogonal to reduce the cross coupling. A new optical lever amplification optical path is developed to eliminate the coupling error. The tracing lens and probe tip are moved as an integrated part. The AFM is operated at contacting mode. The step approach process of the probe tip is tested to the sample surface and the noise of the AFM head is analyzed. The response of the probe demonstrates a 0.5 nm resolution of the probe head in the z direction. Finally, the planar scanning performance of the scanning head is demonstrated compared with tube scanning AFM.