Roughness Parameters of Surfaces by Atomic Force Microscopy

Abstract We present a standardized measurement report for surfaces investigated by scanning probe microscopy (SPM), which include twenty three-dimensional roughness parameters to characterize the surface topography. The examples are some polished copper samples and the scan size is 5 μm × 5 μm. Some of the parameters are generalizations of two-dimensional standards, and some are three-dimensional parameters normally used at larger scan sizes (mm × mm). Furthermore, there are some newly developed parameters extracted from Fourier analysis that reflect the directionality of surface texture. The parameters are discussed and it is shown that not all parameters are giving meaningfully information on μm-range scans.