Precision Measurement of Optical Disc Media and More 

Optical Disc Media

DiscTrack Plus is a critical tool for testing optical discs. It reveals pit and groove geometry, track pitch, wobble, jitter and more. It is a crucial tool for the development of new formats, when disc players are scarce or unavailable. It is the perfect complement to electrical disc analyzers in process optimization and troubleshooting to support production.  DiscTrack Plus supports more than half the world's production of DVDs (as of 2007).

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• ISOM-ODS July 2005 technical presentation about HD-DVD mastering:
•     Poster:  AFM Analysis of HD-DVD Stampers (926 kB PDF)
•     3-page abstract: AFM Analysis of HD-DVD Stampers  (43 kB PDF)
• Read about surprising results in HD-DVD mastering. (92 kB PDF file) [brochure]
• DTP Advanced Image Processor, rescues noisy AFM images. (631 kB PDF file) [brochure]
• DVD-R wobble and pre-pit shape analysis. (469 kB Powerpoint file)
• Online brochure for DiscTrack Plus version 3.5  
• AFM file formats supported by DiscTrack Plus
• Original brochure for version 3.0 (187 kb PDF file)
• "AFM Length Analysis of Data marks:  Measuring Jitter, Asymmetry, Process Noise, and Process Position"--Presented at ODS2001 (Optical Data Storage Converence, Santa Fe NM, April 2001).  (82 kb PDF file) [technical presentation]
• "Measuring Size, Shape and Position of Pits and Grooves"--Presented at Replitech Hong Kong November 2000 (955 kb PDF file) [technical presentation] 
• "How to Save Money using AFM Analysis of Pits and Grooves" -- Presented at Media-Tech Oct. 21, 2003. (403 kb PDF file) [technical and marketing presentation]
• Media-Tech interview Oct. 21, 2003 [sales presentation]
• What our customers say about DiscTrack Plus 

• "Automated, high precision measurement of critical dimensions using the atomic force microscope", Donald A. Chernoff and David L. Burkhead, J. Vac. Sci. Technol. A 17, 1457 (1999).

Magnification Calibration Standards and Optical Gratings

• “Resurrecting dirty atomic force microscopy calibration standards”, Donald A. Chernoff and Robert Sherman, J. Vac. Sci. Technol. B 28, pp. 643-647 (May 2010). Permalink: http://dx.doi.org/10.1116/1.3388847.  Download the preprint (521 kB).

• “Roadmap for Traceable Calibration of a 5-nm Pitch Length Standard”, Donald A. Chernoff  and David L. Burkhead, presented at SPIE Advanced Lithography 2/23/10 (SPIE Paper #: 7638-116)
  Download the preprint (736 kB) or the poster (1662 kB).

• “Picometer-scale accuracy in pitch metrology by optical diffraction and atomic force microscopy”, [1 MB pdf file] Donald A. Chernoff, Egbert Buhr, David L. Burkhead, and Alexander Diener, presented at “Metrology, Inspection, and Process Control for Advanced Lithography XXII”, Monday 2/25/2008.
• Measuring_Nanometers-with-Picometer_Accuracy [4MB pdf] is a presentation first given to the magnetic hard disk industry, showing solutions exist now (2008) to measure the uniformity of patterned media.  It also shows how one might achieve traceability for a 5-nm pitch grating (when it is produced) using calibration techniques already in hand. These techniques are used in our DiscTrack Plus^TM software. 
• NanoMetrology of Optical Gratings  (1MB pdf file) discusses pitch and orthogonality measurements on 2D gratings.  The demonstration measurements relate to an ongoing (2005) study of AFM calibration among several national standards labs. 

Magnetic Disk Media

Pre-patterned media ("Bit Patterned Media" and "Discrete Track Recording") are currently the subject of much research in the hard disk industry.  Pre-patterned media are analogous to optical disc media and DiscTrack Plus should be used to make very precise and accurate measurements from SEM and AFM images of the media masters, stampers or actual media. [updated 9/23/2008]

• "Picometer-scale Accuracy in Position Measurements of NanoDots in a 525 Gdot/in² Pattern", [3.2 MB pdf file], Donald A. Chernoff and David L. Burkhead.  Poster presented at Diskcon 2008, 9/17-18/2008.
  Abstract: 
  Patterned magnetic media require nanometer control of track pitch and feature size variation.  Nanometer control implies picometer metrology.  We use an ordinary open-loop AFM with additional offline calibration and measurement software to measure pitch and pitch variation.  In systematic measurements on a 144 nm pitch 2-Dimensional square grating (31 G dot/in2) we measured individual pitch variation of 0.55 nm (1 σ) and average pitch to an accuracy of 40 pm (1 σ).  Accuracy was confirmed by optical diffraction measurements at a national standards laboratory. 
  SEM of a 76 nm pitch 1-dimensional grating (334k tracks/in) showed individual pitch variation of 167 pm  (1 σ).
  SEM of a 35 nm pitch 2-dimensional grating (525 G dot/in2) showed individual pitch variation of 80 pm (1 σ). This precision suggests we can measure the average pitch to an accuracy of 10 pm (1 σ).
  
• "High Accuracy Measurements of Patterned Media", [590 kB pdf file] poster presented at DiskCon, September, 2007.  See also  “Picometer-scale accuracy in pitch metrology by optical diffraction and atomic force microscopy” [1 MB pdf file] and Measuring_Nanometers-with-Picometer_Accuracy [4MB pdf], which give further discussion of our accuracy claims.  

Read about MagneTrack.  The tool for measuring track pitch, bit placement and amplitude jitter in MFM images.

• Online brochure for MagneTrack
  

Fundamental Measurement Patents

Everything you need to know but were afraid to ask about calibration and measurement from X to Z:

• "High precision calibration and feature measurement system for a scanning probe microscope".
  US Patent 5,644,512, filed March 4, 1996, issued July 1, 1997. 
  Inventors:  Donald A. Chernoff and Jason D. Lohr.
  Text (78 kB)	Scan (3554 kB)

• "High precision calibration and feature measurement system for a scanning probe microscope."
  US Patent 5,825,670, filed March 5, 1997, issued October 20, 1998. 
  Inventors:  Donald A. Chernoff and Jason D. Lohr.
  Text (160 kB)	Scan (6777 kB)

Future and Recent Conferences and Trade Shows:

• SPIE Advanced Lithography - poster presentation 2/26/2010

• SPIE Advanced Lithography - poster presentation 2/25/2008.

• Diskcon, Santa Clara, CA.  9/19-20/2007.  Exhibit and poster presentation.

  Materials Research Society, Boston. Nov.29-Dec.1, 2005.   Booth 824, shared with Applied Nanofluorescence.
  Media-Tech Showcase and Conference, Frankfurt Germany, Oct. 4-5, 2005.  Stand L11.
  ISOM/ODS (Optical Data Storage). Honolulu. July 10-14, 2005.
  Media-Tech Expo, Las Vegas.  May 10-12, 2005.  Booth 11.011

• Forensic Sciences Symposium, Indianapolis.  January 24, 2005.

• Entertainment Media Expo/Media-Tech Showcase.  Hollywood, California.  August 31-Sept.1, 2004.   

• Media-Tech Exposition, Frankfurt, Germany.  May 25-27, 2004.  Stand 3.0 H30

• Media-Tech Showcase and Conference, Frankfurt, Germany October 2003

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updated 07/14/2010

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