Patent ID: 8387158
Filing Date: 2013-02-26
Classification: B82Y,G01Q

Abstract:
1. A method for rapidly and repeatably bringing sharp objects into close nanoscale proximity to a particular region of interest of a surface comprising: a. projecting focused laser light onto a first tip region of a scanning probe microscope to produce back-scattered light; b. projecting focused laser light onto a region of interest of a sample to produce back-scattered light; c. receiving the back-scattered light by a photosensitive device, said photosensitive device converting the received back-scattered light into one of electrical or optical signals capable of identifying the dimensional positions of said first tip and said region of interest and the distance between the dimensional positions of said first tip and said region of interest; d. aligning said positions with respect to said focused laser light; e. providing an output control signal related to the signal output from the photosensitive device from a feedback algorithm/process to a precision positioner to stably maintain the alignment of said positions over a time interval; f. removing the first tip of the scanning probe microscope; g. replacing the first tip of the scanning probe microscope with a second tip; and h. returning said second tip to the identified dimensional positions of said first tip and said region of interest with said precision positioner.