Ae. Holman et al., A CALIBRATED SCANNING TUNNELING MICROSCOPE EQUIPPED WITH CAPACITIVE SENSORS, Review of scientific instruments, 67(6), 1996, pp. 2274-2280
Piezoelectric actuators that are used in scanning probe microscopes an
d in precision X-Y translation stages have undesirable properties. Pie
zoelectric effects like hysteresis, nonlinearity, and drift introduce
geometric deformations in the scanning probe microscope images. Due to
these deformations, the quantitative interpretation of the absolute s
ize of surface features is difficult and often not accurate. A calibra
ted X-Y scanning stage has been developed that is combined with a scan
ning tunneling microscope. This stage is equipped with capacitive sens
ors that measure the X-Y position in real time. By incorporating the s
ensors in a feedback loop, it is possible to correct the piezoelectric
voltages dynamically and reach the desired scanning positions with a
minimal position error. Therefore, a surface can be scanned in a geome
trically proper way, and stage drift and low frequency vibrations are
corrected in real time. (C) 1996 American Institute of Physics.