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US 8,026,719 B2Granted
Magneto-resistance based topography sensing
AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation
InventorsPeter Baechtold, Urs T. Duerig, Walter Haeberle, Armin W. Knoll, Charalampos Pozidis, Deepak Ranjan Sahoo, Gian R. Salis, Abu Sebastian
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Abstract
A topography sensor and method include a probe configured to traverse a surface to determine a topography. A stray magnetic field is disposed in proximity to the probe. A magneto-resistive sensor is configured so that the stray magnetic field passing through it changes in accordance with positional changes of the probe as the probe tip traverses the surface.
Claims21
A topography sensor, comprising:
- a probe configured to traverse a surface to determine a topography of the surface;
- and
- a magneto-resistive sensor configured to sense changes in a stray magnetic field in accordance with positional changes of the probe as the probe traverses the surface and to sense the changes with a sub-nanoscale resolution.
A method for topography sensing, comprising:
- providing a stray magnetic field disposed in proximity to a probe;
- traversing a surface with the probe;
- sensing changes in the stray magnetic field in accordance with positional changes of the probe as the probe traverses the surface using a magneto-resistive sensor;
- and
- processing an imaging signal output by the sensor by interpreting the imaging signal as a linear function of a topography of the surface.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.