Principle of atomic grating and its application in nanotechnology

We present here a new method using atomic grating fringe to achieve resolution as high as one-tenth of an atomic lattice in nanometrology system. The principle of this method is as follows: by superposing two scanning probe microscope (SPM) atomic images, when one is rotated to a specific small angle, moire fringes will be observed. These moire fringes have symmetry and larger periodicity than atomic lattice. Comparing the difference of the fringes obtained before and after sample displacement, we can determine the direction and quantity of movement of the sample within one-tenth of the lattice spacing. This method is suitable to characterizing the stability of the SPM instrument and to single atom location and manufacturing.