Atomic force microscope (AFM) is commonly used for three-dimensional characterization of the surface morphology of structures at nanoscale, but the “Inflation effect” of the tip is an important factor affecting the accuracy. A tip characterizer has the advantages of in situ measurement, higher accuracy of probe inversion results, and relatively simple fabrication process. In this paper, we developed a rectangular tip characterizer based on multilayer film deposition technology with protruding critical dimension parts and grooves parts. And the tip characterization is highly consistent across the line widths and grooves, and still performs well even in the sub-5 nm line width tip characterizer. This indicates that tip characterizers produced by this method can synergistically meet the combined requirements of standard rectangular structure, very small line edge roughness, very small geometry dimension, and traceable measurements.

The characterization of scanning tip morphology is crucial for accurate linewidth measurements. Conventional rectangular characterizers are affected by lateral distortion caused by the nonlinearities in AFM scanning, leading to errors between the actual characterization results and the true values. In this study, we innovatively developed self-traceable two-dimensional nano-gratings using chromium atomic deposition technology and extreme ultraviolet interference lithography. We used this structure as a characterizer for conducting scanning tip characterizations.This paper analyzed the periodic stability of the grating sample during scanning and corrected the lateral distortion of atomic force microscopy (AFM) at scan scales of 0.5 µm and 1 µm based on its self-traceable characteristics. Additionally, we extracted the angle information of the scanning tip in the X direction and Y direction within a scan scale of 0.5 µm. The results demonstrate that the two-dimensional grating sample exhibited excellent periodic stability during scanning. The characterization errors for the tip’s X direction and Y direction angles are within ±2°, showing high consistency. This study highlights that self-traceable two-dimensional grating samples have the capability for in situ bidirectional characterization of tip information, providing a creative solution for the development of new-style tip characterizers.