A nano measurement machine equipped with a 3D piezo-resistive micro tactile probe

•A 3D micro tactile probe based on piezo-resistive effect is developed for dimensional metrology.•A Nano Measurement Machine (NMM) is presented with the 3D micro tactile probe as a new high precision zero-point indicator.•The experimental results show the standard deviation of 37 nm and 104 nm in the vertical and transverse tactile direction of the 1000.0 μm step-height standard with the tactile probe.

A 3D micro tactile probe based on piezo-resistive effect is developed for dimensional metrology and a detailed analysis on the hysteresis, resolution, crosstalk and uncertainty of the probe is presented. A Nano Measurement Machine (NMM) equipped with the 3D micro tactile probe is proposed as a new high precision zero-point indicator for micro- and nano-scale traceable dimensional measurement, which is calibrated according to the standard characteristic curve. In 1 mm step-height standard measurement experiment using the 3D piezo-resistive micro tactile probe, the experimental results show a standard deviation of 37 nm in the vertical tactile direction and one of 104 nm in transverse tactile direction while the standard deviation is 40 nm in the vertical direction in the 2 mm step-height standard measuring experiment.