Improvement of a Stitching Operation in the Stitching Linear-Scan Method for Measurement of Cylinders in a Small Dimension

Attempts are made in this paper to improve the quality of the stitching between adjacent arc-profiles in the stitching linear-scan method for the roundness measurement of a cylinder in a small dimension. The data in the edge region of an arc-profile, which could be influenced by the pressure angle of the measurement probe of a linear-scan stylus profiler, are eliminated in the stitching process to improve the quality of stitching. The effectiveness of the elimination of the edge region of an arc-profile is evaluated by employing the cross-correlation coefficient of two adjacent arc-profiles as an evaluation index. Furthermore, a modification is made to the experimental setup to reduce the misalignment of a workpiece along its axial direction with respect to the scanning probe. Experiments are carried out by using the modified setup to demonstrate the feasibility of the stitching linear-scan method for the roundness measurement of a small cylinder, which is difficult to measure by the conventional rotary-scan method.

Si3N4 Young’s modulus measurement from microcantilever beams using a calibrated stylus profiler

Stylus surface profiler has been widely used in order to measure Young’s modulus of silicon nitride (Si3N4) from microcantilever beams. Until now, several Si3N4 Young’s modulus values have been reported. It may be due to incomplete assessment of the microcantilever beams bending over its entire length or a lack of calibration of the stylus force system used in those works. We presented in this work an alternative method to measure the elastic modulus of MEMS thin layers in a rather accurate manner. A stylus force calibration is reported from a calibrated silicon microcantilever beam in order to measure the Si3N4 Young’s modulus. We reported Si3N4 Young´s modulus from three microcantilever beams, with values of 219.4 ± 0.6 GPa, 230.1 ± 3.4 GPa and 222 ± 11 GPa for 50 µm, 100 µm and 200 µm wide respectively, which are in good agreement with respect to the Si3N4 Young´s modulus which have been determined by other methods.

Complex Study of SiC Epitaxial Films

4H-SiC epitaxial films grown on 4H-SiC in CVD reactor VP508GFR are investigated using FTIR, X-Ray diffraction, C-V measurements, stylus profiler and DIC optical microscopy.

Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of TiN/NbN Multilayered Coating

In this study, multilayers of TiN/NbN were deposited by d.c. magnetron sputtering on die steel substrates. The structure, morphology and nano-hardness were assessed using X-ray diffraction, atomic force microscopy (AFM), stylus profiler (XP-2 stylus profiler) and nanoindentation, respectively. Wear tests were performed on pin-on-disk configuration and dry sliding conditions, at 5N load by using hardened steel ball. The result shows TiN with highly (111) preferred orientation. On mechanical properties, Young’s modulus and hardness values increase for layers number increase. At 64 layers films had the highest nano-hardness, Young’s modulus values. The TiN/NbN multilayer films presented changes in its morphology becoming more granulated and density after heating up to 500°C. A significant decrease in friction coefficient has been achieved for TiN/NbN multilayers against steel ball.