[Spm] Re: Cleaning waffle calibration gratings

[trizwan at ualberta.ca]

Hi Don,

We clean our grating using a replicating tape purchased from Ted Pella  
Inc. It works well in removing most of the troublesome contaminants.  
All you do is cut a piece of it and place it on the grid surface, put  
a tiny drop of acetone on to the tape to dissolve it, allow the  
acetone to evaporate out and pull off the tape once it hardens.

Hope this works for you as well.

Regards,
Tania


_________________________________
Tania Rizwan
Graduate Student

Colloids and Complex Fluids (CCF) Lab
Department of Mechanical Engineering
4-9 Mechanical Engineering Building
University of Alberta
Edmonton, AB T6G 2G8

Tel:780-492-9673
Lab:780-492-8722
Fax:780-492-2200
email: trizwan at ualberta.ca

> Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2007 12:11:59 -0400
> From: "Don Chernoff at ASM"
> Subject: [Spm] Cleaning waffle calibration gratings
> To: "SPM  List"
> Message-ID: <003101c7e344$d9d143c0$6701a8c0 at asm15>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> Many AFMs are supplied with a 'waffle grating' to calibrate the XYZ   
> axes.  Typically, the pattern consists of 5 um wide pits on a square  
>  grid with 10 um pitch.  The pits are normally 180 nm deep (older   
> gratings) or 200 nm deep (newer gratings).  Many  of the older   
> gratings seem to accumulate small bumps (< 0.5 um wide) that are   
> 10-50 nm high.
> What cleaning techniques are useful for these gratings so that   
> nano-dirt does not interfere with the measurements?  For example,   
> has anyone tried CO2 snow cleaning?  Plasma cleaning?
>
> I myself have tried ultrasonic cleaning, using an ordinary small lab  
>  unit (not megasonic).  This succeeded in breaking large clumps into  
>  smaller ones and spreading them across the surface, so that the   
> specimen was less useful than before.
>
> regards,
> Don
> =============================================
> Don Chernoff, Ph.D., President
> Advanced Surface Microscopy, Inc.    E-Mail:  donc at asmicro.com
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