Modular family of sensors for a Nanopositioning and Manomeasuring Machine

This paper presents a modular sensor family and her integration into a Nanopositioning and Nanomeasuring Machine (NPM Machine). More and more flexible data acquisition is necessary in high-precision metrology of micro- and nanostructured parts with increasing complexity and 3D-dimensionality of the geometry. Sensing of most various surfaces and structures with nanometre resolution is an important issue. Because of different capabilities of divers optical probes among each other, but also of tactile and atomic force sensors a multiple sensor concept on the basis of a modular family of sensors is proposed. The combination of the several probes is realised by a microscope revolver system. Centrepiece of the metrology system is a Nanopositioning and Nanomeasuring Machine with sub-nanometre resolution in a measuring range of several milimetres.