Development of an SPM Platform for High Speed, High Resolution, Large Scale Nanometrology

Joel Therrien, Electrical and Computer Engineering and Daniel Schmidt, Plastics Engineering

The goal of this project is to reduce the time required to analyze nanomanufactured materials. A major bottleneck in nanomanufacturing is the inability to assess rapidly the quality of the products. This significantly impairs the efficiency of nanomanufacturing by delaying feedback on the manufacturing line, thus hindering quality control. Currently, manufacturing defects may go undetected for days while samples are analyzed, resulting in large losses. This proposal addresses this problem for processes that create nanostructures on surfaces, such as template-directed-assembly techniques.