Applications

SPIP™ is used for a wide range of applications. Below you will find a few examples of real-life applications from some of our customers.

Contrast Enhancement of Molecules by Image Averaging and Correlation Averaging
More images of the same surface region are aligned and averaged in order to increase the signal to noise ratio. Further the details of adsorbed hydrocarbon molecules are enhanced by correlation averaging.

Cover Illustation, Langmuir May 2004
SPIP™ contains visualization tools that enables you to create impressive and convincing presentations.

Cover Illustation, Nature Nanotechnology January 2007
A 3D Rendering of a single-layer MoS2 nanocluster was used as cover illustration. The image was related to the following paper: "Size-dependent structure of MoS2 nanocrystalsNature" Nanotechnology, Vol.2 No.1 January 2007, pp 53-58. Jeppe V. Lauritsen, Jakob Kibsgaard, Stig Helveg, Henrik Topsøe, Bjerne S. Clausen, Erik Lægsgaard and Flemming Besenbacher

Cover Illustration, Annual report of Danish Fundamental Metrology
3D rendering was used to visualize steep sidewalls of a test structure under development.

Cover Illustration, Les nanosciences, 3. Nanobiotechnologies et nanobiologie
A 3D rendering of a brewster is used to illustrate the cover of the book "Les nanosciences - 3. nanobiotechnologies et nanobiologie".

Elastic modulus: Single curve analysis and force volume mapping
SPIP™ has features for fitting currently two indentation models to force curves yielding the elastic modulus (Young’s modulus) as the main result. In addition to analyzing individual force curves SPIP™ can also create Young’s modulus maps from the force curves in force volume datasets.

Force Volume: With SPIP™ you can change set-point after recording your image!
A Force Volume image consists of an array of force curves. Each force curve consists of an approach curve and a retract curve and is usually in the form of cantilever deflection recorded as a function of height. In SPIP™ each force curve can be processed and analyzed individually or the entire force volume data-set can be processed in parallel. SPIP™ can generate a vast number of mappings based on a force volume data set. As one of very few software packages SPIP™ can generate constant force images from the force volume data-set.

General Image Analysis
SPM and SEM images are analyzed by SPIP™.

Height histograms: Use and interpretation of void and material volume
The height histogram of a topographical image shows the statistical distribution of z-values (heights) within the image. This notes describe how the histogram can be used for quantifying the total volume of holes (void) and protrusions (material) of a surface.

Image Overlay in 3D Visualization Studio
SPIP™ is used for overlaying simultaneously recorded SPM images, e.g. the height and phase image acquired using tapping mode AFM.

Microelectronics and Nanotechnology
SPIP™ is used for image visualization and elaboration including statistical analysis, Fourier analysis, grain analysis, and fractal analysis.

Micromilling and Analyzing Terraces
DIMEG - University of Padova in Italy conducts research to investigate effects of miniaturization on surface generation in micromilling, with a particular focus on generated surface topographies. SPIP™ is used for plane correction, roughness analysis, and quantification, and 3D rendering of milled surfaces exhibiting terraces.

Molecular Organized System Analysis
Spectroscopy of surfaces (liquids, solids) in relation with molecular organised systems such as lipids, peptides, proteins, and grafted chains. 3D representation of the brewster and ellipsometric grey levels images obtained with an elli2000 instrument (NFT).

Nanomedicine, Cystic Fibrosis
Representing data, particle counting, and volume measurement.

Nanometrology
SPIP™ has a large metrology tool box used for assuring the highest accuracy when measuring in SPM images and other images acquired at nano scale.

Nanometrology – ISO 5436 Compliant Step Height Calibration
An optical profiler is calibrated using a machined step gauge by averaging over several steps and extracting the height according to the ISO 5436 written standard.

Nanoparticle Characterization
Characterization of nanoparticles such as dendritic polymers, metal clusters, clays and other platelet materials. The characterization includes size and shape distributions. SPIP is used to efficiently identify features and extract the distributions for lateral area and height from AFM images.

Nanostructured Thin Films
Analysis of porous film structure from AFM and SEM images, including measuring fractal scaling behaviour (power-law growth exponents).

Nanotribology
SPIP™ is used for post-processing of AFM images. After removing noise from the images, the roughness parameters are calculated and linked with the friction force.

Organic Monolayers Investigated by STM
SPIP™ is used for all image processing operations including filtering, image preparation, and calibration with FFT tools for publication.

Oxide Molecular Beam Heteroepitaxy, Including Epitaxy on Oxides and Semiconductors
SPIP™ is used for the final image processing before creating the completed version of any figures used in publications.

Pharmaceutical R&D, Contract Research
SPIP™ is used for batch processing of large data sets to produce quantitative data such as roughness values. Furthermore, SPIP™ is used to speed up report generation and for the implementation of tip deconvolution algorithms.

Quality Assurance and Dislocation Analysis of GaN Wafers Bbased on SEM Images
This example demonstrates time efficient and robust dislocations analysis of a GaN epiwafer surface. The objective is to estimate the number of dislocations even though some are clustered and leveled differently. The images were acquired by a SEM microscope modified with a Cathodoluminescence (CL) contrast detector.

Roughness: SPIP™ vs NanoScope, how to get the same values
The result of a roughness calculation will always depend on the preceding operations: plane correction, form removal and filtering. Since software packages tend to apply different automatic operations they will also produce different results. Here we describe the different options in SPIP™ and show how to obtain the same roughness values as produced by the Veeco NanoScope* software.

Transmission Gratings, Phase Masks, and NFH Masks
SPIP™ is used for analyzing step heights and duty cycles in both SEM and AFM images of gratings. Furthermore, grain analysis of 2D gratings is carried out.

Virus Research
Analysis of 2D auto-organized STMV viruses.