| abstract |
Under the condition that the height is fixed at a target height by turning off a feedback control system of a Z piezoelectric actuator of a cantilever of an atomic force microscope having a probe, which is harder than a processed material, flexure and twisting of the cantilever when carrying out mechanical processing while selectively repeating scanning only on the processed area (in the case of detecting flexure, parallel with the cantilever and in the case of detecting twisting, vertical with the cantilever) is monitored by a quadrant photodiode position sensing detector and the processing is repeated till a flexure amount or a twisting amount, namely, till an elastic deformation amount of the cantilever becomes not more than a determined threshold. It is not necessary to carry out scanning of the observation in obtaining the height information for detection of an end point, so that it is possible to improve a throughput of processing. |