Surface roughness standards, obtained with the scanning tunneling microscope operated at atmospheric air pressure

Abstract

Microstructure surface texture is studied with the Scanning Tunneling Microscope operated at atmospheric air pressure. A standardization procedure for surface microstructure is proposed. We introduce two parameters in order to characterize surface areas in the micrometer and submicrometre range, which we term "granular roughness" and "microroughness". Measurements of a class "0" standard block gauge give a granular roughness R a value of 0.02 μm.