Session M23: Invited Session: Industrial Physics Forum: Advances in Measurement Technology

Advances in Measurement Technology at NIST's Physical Measurement Laboratory

The NIST mission is to promote U.S. innovation and industrial competitiveness by advancing measurement science, standards, and technology. The Physical Measurement Laboratory (PML) has responsibility for maintaining national standards for two dozen physical quantities needed for international trade; and, importantly, it carries out advanced research at the frontiers of measurement science to enable extending innovation into new realms and new markets. This talk will highlight advances being made across several sectors of technology; and it will describe how PML interacts with its many collaborators and clients in industry, government, and academe.   

Recent Advances in AFM Technology

We will review several recent advances in commercial Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) technology. The first is the further miniaturization of cantilevers for AFM which has increased their resonant frequencies and decreased their thermal noise, allowing faster, lower noise measurements. When used in an extremely low-noise AFM, these levers have enabled significant improvements in imaging resolution in air and especially in liquids, including the resolution of individual point defects. The second is quantitative mechanical measurements using multifrequency AC techniques. Previously, the contrast in AM-AFM has been difficult to quantify. Recent work has provided an interpretation of the tapping mode observables that allows unambiguous interpretation of material properties. The AM-FM imaging mode combines normal AM mode with the quantitative and high sensitivity of frequency modulated (FM) mode. The mode provides four observables that can be used to solve for parameters, such as sample modulus, in models of the tip-sample interaction. Finally, we will discuss the benefits of photothermal excitation, a new drive mechanism for AC mode techniques that replaces conventional piezo drive. It vastly improves ease-of-use in liquids and provides greatly improved stability in the cantilever drive response relative to piezo drive. Additionally, the drive provides a near-perfect transfer function to the cantilever, enabling more quantitative interpretation in areas like nanomechanical measurement.\\[4pt] In collaboration with Aleks Labuda, Deron Walters, Mario Viani, Sophia Hohlbauch, Irene Revenko, Marta Kocun, and Roger Proksch, Asylum Research, an Oxford Instruments Company.   

Metrology Tools for Semiconductor Manufacturing

The nanoscale dimension of the devices and structures used to fabricate present and future generations of integrated circuits provide numerous challenges for measurement technology. There are two means by which measurement technology advance. First, existing measurement equipment often provides unexpected capability through advances in modeling and new applications. Examples of this include optical models for nanoscale materials for film thickness and X-Ray diffraction X-Ray reciprocal space maps (RSM) for measurement of SiGe/Si thin films and fin stress state and fin pitch. RSMs are sensitive to the key lithography issue of pitch walking. Pitch walking refers to the two pitch that occur when new double patterning lithography processes are used. The other means by which metrology advances is through new measurement equipment. An example of this is the Mueller Matrix spectroscopic ellipsometry equipment that is used for critical dimension measurement. Two examples of this will be shown including 3D shape and CD measurement of fins and measurement of structures fabricated using directed self-assembly of block co-polymers. This talk will cover the physical principles of the examples stated above as well as recent advances and breakthroughs in metrology.   

Recent advances in medical ultrasound

Ultrasound has become one of the most widely used imaging modalities in medicine; yet, before ultrasound-imaging systems became available, high intensity ultrasound was used as early as the 1950s to ablate regions in the brains of human patients. Recently, a variety of novel applications of ultrasound have been developed that include site-specific and ultrasound-mediated drug delivery, acoustocautery, lipoplasty, histotripsy, tissue regeneration, and bloodless surgery, among many others. This lecture will review several new applications of therapeutic ultrasound and address some of the basic scientific questions and future challenges in developing these methods and technologies for general use in our society. We shall particularly emphasize the use of High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) in the treatment of benign and malignant tumors.   

High Sensitivity Gravity Measurements in the Adverse Environment of Oil Wells

Bulk density is a primary measurement within oil and gas reservoirs and is the basis of most reserves calculations by oil companies. The measurement is performed with a gamma-ray source and two scintillation gamma-ray detectors from within newly drilled exploration and production wells. This nuclear density measurement, while very precise is also very shallow and is therefore susceptible to errors due to any alteration of the formation and fluids in the vicinity of the borehole caused by the drilling process. Measuring acceleration due to gravity along a well provides a direct measure of bulk density with a very large depth of investigation that makes it practically immune to errors from near-borehole effects. Advances in gravity sensors and associated mechanics and electronics provide an opportunity for routine borehole gravity measurements with comparable density precision to the nuclear density measurement and with sufficient ruggedness to survive the rough handling and high temperatures experienced in oil well logging. We will describe a borehole gravity meter and its use under very realistic conditions in an oil well in Saudi Arabia. The density measurements will be presented.