Surface metrology – D. J. Whitehouse

A review article

Abstract

Some important types of instrumentation for measuring surfaces both past and present are reviewed. Exhaustive lists of instruments and performance are not presented; rather more emphasis is placed on the philosophy of measurement. An attempt is made to classify the surface features and also the function of surfaces as a pre-requisite to measurement. It is revealed that, as the push towards miniaturization is being taken beyond the nanometrology scale, some theoretical restrictions are likely to be encountered.