Measurement of groove depth standards in the range 1 μm up to 1 mm (EURAMET project 1407)

A comparison measurement between 10 national metrology institutes on two types of depth setting standards was conducted using mostly tactile but also two optical instruments for measurement. Three etched silicon standards with depths of 5, 20 and 50 μm and one diamond turned nickel coated copper standard with depths of 200, 600 and 900 μm were measured. The cross section of the grooves was trapezoidal. Most of the participants confirmed their CMC entries. Since many measurements had to be made, contamination of the standards and heavy wear on the standards were also observed after the comparison was completed. The wear consists of indentation marks from stylus instruments on both types of standards and as many as 70 scratch marks on the nickel coated copper artefact used. This indicates that the contact pressure of the tactile measuring devices used by some partners was too high. This can be caused by a too high probing force or a too small probing tip radius. Thus, for future comparisons the actual probing force and actual tip radius need to be measured during the comparison by the participants to assure that the recommended values (2 μm tip radius and 0.7 mN probing force) are not exceeded. The recently published German standard DIN 32567-3 "Determination of the influence of materials on the optical and tactile dimensional metrology - Part 3: Derivation of correction values for tactile measuring devices" describes methods to do both.