A UNIVERSAL PARALLEL-MOVING PLATFORM FOR NANO-METROLOGY

A platform is realized which enables the calibration of a wide variety of displacement-measuring probes, such as probes of roundness testers , roughness testers and stand-alone type Scanning Probe Microscopes (S PM's), in a range of 15 mu m with an uncertainty below I nm. The platf orm is driven by a Digital Piezo Translator (DPT). The DPT is locked t o an elastic, hysteresis free monolithic parallel guide containing a f lat mirror which serves as the calibration platform. Calibration of th e platform displacement is carried out by positioning an identical sta tionary mirror at a short distance so that a Fabry-Perot interferomete r is formed. This enables the system to be calibrated with a final unc ertainty of about 0,1 nm. As an example the calibration of an SPM usin g 0,5 mu m generated steps is shown.