Contents
Home
Products and services for AFM, STM, and SEM
Applications of AFM and STM
CD
DVD
HD-DVD
Blu-Ray
Hard Disks
Magnetic Tape
More
Powders
Paper
Packaging materials
Cast, extruded, or molded polymers
Coatings
Paint
Paper finishing
Can coatings
Electronic Materials
Silicon
Silicon Carbide
Germanium
Gallium Arsenide
Wafers
Thin Films
Automotive
Energy Technologies
Corrosion
Calalysts
New materials including ultra high strength magnets
Optics & Photonics
Diffraction Gratings
Modified surfaces
superpolished optics
Ultrasmooth surfaces
IR
Visible Light
UV
X-Ray
Telecommunications
Metals
Gallery
of interesting images
Links
|
Surface Roughness Measurements
Have roughness and surface finish problems?
Surface roughness is an important indicator of product quality for many
industries.
- In semiconductor manufacturing, roughness of bare Silicon wafers is
measured after polishing and cleaning. Excessive roughness destroys
the integrity of very thin layers, such as gate or tunnel oxide.
Roughness is equally important for other electronic materials, such as SiC
(silicon carbide), GaAs (gallium arsenide), and GaN (gallium nitride).
- In optics, surface roughness causes light scattering, which can be good or
bad for the product, depending on the application. For high quality
X-ray mirrors, both the substrate roughness and the coating roughness are
measured and must be minimized. For diffusers, controlled roughness is
important to achieve the desired effect; part of the control relates to the
roughness power spectrum, so that the diffuse scattering is isotropic and
achromatic.
- In the paper industry, surface roughness and porosity are critical factors
in determining whether a paper can sell for $1/sheet (photo quality inkjet
paper), $0.005/sheet (multipurpose photocopier paper), or somewhere in the
middle.
- In general, the AFM demonstrates subtle, yet important, effects of surface
treatment, corrosion and aging in a wide variety of materials, including
metals, ceramics, glasses, semiconductors and polymers.
The AFM can measure surface roughness over a very wide dynamic range:
from Ra = 0.03 nm to 500 nm. The combination of 3-dimensional
visualization with quantitative measurement is powerful.
 |
Silicon Carbide (SiC) wafer prepared by chemical-mechanical polishing (CMP).
5 um scan XY. Z axis: 1 nm/div. Roughness: Ra = 0.049
nm. Rq = 0.061 nm.
The distinct ridges are atomic steps. The fact that we can see them
indicates the perfection of the surface.
|
We can help you control surface roughness to make your products better?
Contact us to find out how.
|