Santa Clara, CA-- June 26, 2007
The research by Ken Crozier and Federico Capasso that added nanoscale optical antennae to commercially available lasers brings the world that much closer to having a single DVD store 750 times the capacity of today’s recordable DVD. Named as one of 2007’s top ten emerging technologies by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the March/April, 2007 issue of Technology Review, Capasso and Crozier relied on Park Systems’ XE-120 Scanning Probe Microscope throughout their research, using its near-field scanning module to generate accurate nanoscale measurements on the antennae.
Leading a team of Harvard University engineers, Crozier and Capasso focused infrared light onto a spot just 40 nanometers wide – one-twentieth the light's wavelength. To accomplish this feat, the antennae could be no more than 50 nanometers long and the AFM would need to provide exceptional clarity.
“The Park Systems XE-120 AFM revolutionizes the way AFM users view their samples,” said Sung Park, vice president of operations for Park Systems. “The AFM provides a natural, on-axis view from the top. The optical path from the measured product to the XE-120’s CCD camera is an unobstructed straight line, so the user enjoys higher quality optical views than are possible with conventional AFMs.”
In addition, the XE-120 AFM’s image processing software has versatile imaging features to enable users to obtain critical information from their experiments – from routine grain size analysis high-resolution image generation. Beyond contributing to advancements in the storage industry by helping to possibly increase disc storage from 4.7 gigabytes of data to 3.6 terabytes, optical antennae can also potentially be used in photolithography, carving out smaller features on silicon currently restricted by the diffraction limit.
About Park Systems
Founded in 1988, Park Systems (formerly PSIA) is an award-winning pioneer of Atomic Force Microscopy, and one of the first manufacturers of a commercial AFM. Their XE-100 series won several awards for innovation, including being selected as one of Korea’s Ten Best New Technologies of 2004. The company offers AFM and SPM (scanning probe microscopes) for both small- and largesample measurement, Near-field Scanning Optical Microscopy (NSOM) and Raman Spectrometry (NSOM and Raman are no longer available). In addition, Park offers an industrial product line that extends its NX technology to a variety of metrological applications, including hard disk inspection, next-generation sliders, sidewall/overhang imaging and profiling, and semiconductors. The U.S. office of Park Systems is located at 3040 Olcott Street, Santa Clara, California, and can be contacted at (408) 986-1110. Visit http://www.parksystems.com for more information.