Introduction
We live in a world where state-of-the-art consumer products and technologies are continuing to shrink in size while achieving unprecedented performance. The demand for new and more capable micro and nanoscale measurement products has been driven by the increasing miniaturization of components across a wide range of applications including
• medical devices e.g. hearing aid, pace maker, endoscope subcomponents, implants (dental or joint),
• Soft or delicate material, e.g. plastics, bio-compatible materials such as peek,
• High aspect ratio features, e.g. ink jet nozzles, fuel injectors,
• Polished surfaces with steeply sloping sides, e.g. mold making, medical joint implants, optics
• Precision mechanisms: disk drives, micromotors, ball bearings, watches
• and many more.
Product reliability in these applications depends on the quality of the subcomponents and mating parts which is defined by the capability of the measurement technology. As parts continue decreasing in size, the tolerances levels are also decreasing, making measurement a challenge and current technologies are not keeping scale with this need. Everything from implanted medical devices to diesel injector nozzles can be produced more efficiently, at lower cost, with higher yields, through the use of higher precision, more accurate, reliable, and flexible measurements.
