Paper Info
Title
Robotic Probing of Nanostructures inside Scanning Electron Microscopy
Abstract
Probing nanometer-sized structures to evaluate the performance of integrated circuits (IC) for design verification and manufacturing quality monitoring demands precision nanomanipulation technologies. To minimize electron-induced damage and improve measurement accuracy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) imaging parameters must be cautiously chosen to ensure low electron energy and dosage. This results in significant image noise and drift. This paper presents automated nanoprobing with a nanomanipulation system inside a standard SEM. We achieved SEM image denoising and drift compensation in real time. This capability is necessary for achieving robust visual tracking and servo control of nanomanipulators for probing nanostructures in automated operation. This capability also proves highly useful to conventional manual operation by rendering real-time SEM images that have little noise and drift. The automated system probed nanostructures on an SEM metrology chip as surrogates of electronic features on IC chips. Success rates in visual tracking and Z-contact detection under various imaging conditions were quantitatively discussed. The experimental results demonstrate the system’s capability for automated probing of nanostructures under IC-chip-probing relevant electron microscope imaging conditions.
Year
DOI
Venue
2014
10.1109/TRO.2014.2298551
IEEE Transactions on Robotics
Keywords
Field
DocType
Scanning electron microscopy,Noise,Graphics processing units,Probes,Noise reduction,Nanobioscience
Nanoprobing,Noise reduction,Control engineering,Artificial intelligence,Servo control,Integrated circuit,Computer vision,Metrology,Chip,Image noise,Rendering (computer graphics),Optoelectronics,Mathematics
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
30
3
1552-3098
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
0
0.34
6
Authors
4
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Zheng Gong1253.48
Brandon K. Chen2272.64
Jun Liu3162.32
Yu Sun441869.89