Nearfield Instruments researches and develops mechatronics architectures, equipped with advanced control and data processing to be at the forefront of industry-best measurement precision and reproducibility. Combining novel mechatronics concepts and advanced motion control techniques, Nearfield Instruments has developed high-speed long and short range positioning stages with sub-Angstrom noise and precision. An example is its 6-DOF Metro-frame & 6-DOF active vibration isolation. In all AFM systems so far, reaction forces of the wafer scanning stage are exerted on the measurement head. These reaction forces introduce considerable errors in the measurement, which are neglected as the scanning speeds are so low that the measurement can wait for settling and damping of the vibrations. To achieve industry-level precision at high throughput, Nearfield Instruments has developed 6-DOF metro-and force frames that measure and correct the errors generated due to reaction forces exerted by the acceleration of the wafer scanning stage. This equipped with a 6-DOF Active vibration isolation system, creating an extremely silent world for the scan heads and wafer scanning stage, which is essential for high-precision measurement.
