Nanometrology

Nanometrology is a subfield of metrology, concerned with the science of measurement at the nanoscale level. Nanometrology has a crucial role in order to produce nanomaterials and devices with a high degree of accuracy and reliability in nanomanufacturing. Nanometrology is a subfield of metrology, concerned with the science of measurement at the nanoscale level. Nanometrology has a crucial role in order to produce nanomaterials and devices with a high degree of accuracy and reliability in nanomanufacturing. A challenge in this field is to develop or create new measurement techniques and standards to meet the needs of next-generation advanced manufacturing, which will rely on nanometer scale materials and technologies. The needs for measurement and characterization of new sample structures and characteristics far exceed the capabilities of current measurement science. Anticipated advances in emerging U.S. nanotechnology industries will require revolutionary metrology with higher resolution and accuracy than has previously been envisioned. Control of the critical dimensions are the most important factors in nanotechnology. Nanometrology today, is to a large extent based on the development in semiconductor technology. Nanometrology is the science of measurement at the nanoscale level. Nanometer or nm is equivalent to 10^-9 m. In Nanotechnology accurate control of dimensions of objects is important. Typical dimensions of nanosystems vary from 10 nm to a few hundred nm and while fabricating such systems measurement up to 0.1 nm is required. At nanoscale due to the small dimensions various new physical phenomena can be observed. For example, when the crystal size is smaller than the electron mean free path the conductivity of the crystal changes. Another example is the discretization of stresses in the system. It becomes important to measure the physical parameters so as to apply these phenomena into engineering of nanosystems and manufacturing them. The measurement of length or size, force, mass, electrical and other properties is included in Nanometrology.The problem is how to measure these with reliability and accuracy. The measurement techniques used for macro systems cannot be directly used for measurement of parameters in nanosystems. Various techniques based on physical phenomena have been developed which can be used for measure or determine the parameters for nanostructures and nanomaterials. Some of the popular ones are X-Ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, High Resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy, atomic force microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, field emission scanning electron microscopy and Brunauer, Emmett, Teller method to determine specific surface.