A METHOD FOR DETERMINING THE SHAPE OF A SAMPLE TIP FOR ATOM PROBE TOMOGRAPHY USING A SCANNING PROBE MICROSCOPE AND SCANNING PROBE MICROSCOPE FOR PERFORMING SAID METHOD

摘要

The invention is related to a method and apparatus for correctly positioning a probe (1) suitable for scanning probe microscopy (SPM) relative to the apex region (21) of a needle-shaped sample (11), such as a sample for atom probe tomography, in order to perform an SPM acquisition of said apex region to thereby obtain an image of said region. The positioning takes place by an iterative process, starting from a position wherein one side plane (12) of the pyramid-shaped SPM probe interacts with the sample tip (15). By controlled consecutive scans in two orthogonal directions, the SPM probe tip (1) approaches and finally reaches a position wherein a tip area (H) of the probe interacts with the sample tip's apex region (21).