Environmental temperature effect on dimensional measurements of atomic force microscopy

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) is increasingly being used as a fundamental tool for dimensional measurements at the nanoscale in the laboratory and in industry. Since the environmental temperature is not controlled in many measurements, or is even varied on purpose, quantification of its effects on AFM dimensional measurements is needed. In this paper, the influences of the temperature in the entire environment of the AFM (excluding only the controller and computer) and that in the local environment around the tip-sample are investigated. The results show that lateral dimensional measurements are affected mainly by the entire environmental temperature. However, vertical measurements are influenced by the temperature of both the entire environment and the local environment. The effects become significant for temperatures higher than some threshold, here between 35 and 40 degrees C. (C) 2021 Author(s).