SBIR-STTR Award

Near-Field Scanning Microwave Microscopy (SMM) is a technique relying on a raster scan of a microwave probe across a sample surface, while measuring its reflected microwave signal. The existing technologies are limited to the surface analysis, and are not compatible with liquid environment. These limitations are addressed by the proposed wideband 3D tomography SMM with sub-surface analysis capability enabling novel commercial and industrial applications such as semiconductor inspection that require the need of non-invasive material analysis. Likewise, biological sample analysis and threat detection would greatly benefit from such technique.

Scanning probe microscopy (SPM) is a technique used to detect near-field interaction when a sample is rater-scanned by a probe. Example include atomic force microscope (AFM) and scanning tunneling microscope (STM). It offers nanometric and atomic image resolution. In this field, an emerging technique, Near-Field Scanning Microwave Microscopy (SMM), utilizes microwave evanescent waves to attain the short-range interaction, which can provide extra quantitative measured data besides the nanometric images. However, existing systems are expensive, and usually limited to a single frequency measurement below 20GHz without exploiting the penetration capabilities of microwave, and are generally incompatible with liquid environments. These limitations are addressed by the proposed wideband 3D tomography SMM with sub-surface analysis capability. It focuses on a novel detection approach that can be extended to very high frequencies.