Roughness Standard?

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Don Chernoff replied on Thu, Jul 19 2012 9:36 PM

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Verified by David Durham

David,

People often ask about roughness standards.  The short answer is that, at the nanoscale, there probably are no commercial roughness standards.  Instead we rely on step height standards to make sure the Z axis of the AFM is properly calibrated. 

The long answer is: there are commercial micron-scale roughness standards which may be precision saw-tooth profiles which are measured with a 10 um radius diamond stylus.

There has been some research toward nano-roughness standards:
2001 - Hans H. Gatzen and Christos Kourouklis
Institute for Microtechnology, Hanover University, Germany  - maybe an internal progress report -"THE FABRICATION OF NANO-ROUGHNESS STANDARDS FOR THE CALIBRATION OF ATOMIC FORCE MICROSCOPES" -- briefly discusses nano-ground surfaces.  see
www.aspe.net.... (link found on google)

4/23/2008 and 10/16/2008 - post doctoral job announcement by the French National Metrology Lab, dept. CSMI 338 - Unité Nanometrologie Dimensionnelle - Contacts :
Dominique GIRBAL and François PIQUEMAL.
"project, Nanoref, supported by a French Research Agency (ANR) aims at developing a roughness standard with a quasi-continuum spatial frequency spectrum, unavailable today in the nanometric range. The challenge is important since comparison measurements on surface roughness carried out by national and international teams have revealed a disagreement on results, more especially when experimental set ups do not involve the same physical principle. This project consists in determining reproducible fabrication process and conservation of surface standards. "

There may be more....  May the Google be with you.

Don Chernoff, Ph.D., President
Advanced Surface Microscopy, Inc.; 3250 N. Post Rd., Suite 120;
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