AFSEM

The advent of integrated atomic force microscopes (AFMs) in stand-alone scanning electron microscopes (SEMs) opened new possibilities due to quantitative 3D information on complex surface morphologies. The combination of an AFM in situ in the SEM, termed AFSEM, allows for high depth resolution imaging of sample surfaces. The SEM is used for positioning of the AFM cantilever near the site of interest. The combination expands the information for both techniques due to the quasi-simultaneous correlation within one setup. While the SEM acts as the high-resolution navigation tool, the integrated AFM solution provides laterally resolved, quantitative height information with nm and even sub-nm resolution in XY and Z, respectively. This is an enormous advantage as it is very complicated to distinguish between real surface features on the lower nanoscale and coverage layers via SEM due to the electron beam penetration depth.