Dedicated Robotic Handling and Processing at the Submicrometer Scale: Feasibility Studies

Robotic systems allowing for reliable operation at the submicrometer scale are becoming increasingly important for characterization and manipulation with nanometric precision. The most prominent representatives of these setups are scanning probe microscopes. However, to date, most scanning probe systems are restricted to the use of a single probe within a small working range, strictly limiting the application perspectives of these setups for increasingly complex robotic processing tasks at small scales. This work addresses the crucial issue mentioned above and focuses on dedicated robotic setups allowing for advanced robotic processing at the submicrometer scale. The developed setups function via the simultaneous and cooperative operation of different actors and tailored probes that are controlled through multiple sensing principles. The performance capacities of these setups are demonstrated within two distinguished application scenarios.