[labnetwork] Shadow Mask for "Location Grid"

[Hathaway, Malcolm R]

Hi All,

As a follow up comment, we think 300-500 um squares would suffice for most purposes, and maybe as small at 100 um.    With a shadow mask, these would be defined with dashed lines, maybe 5-10 um wide.  Narrow is better to avoid covering up features of interest.


Mac
________________________________
From: labnetwork <labnetwork-bounces at mtl.mit.edu> on behalf of Mac Hathaway <hathaway at cns.fas.harvard.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, February 23, 2022 3:59 PM
To: Lab Network (labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu) <labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu>; Akey, Austin <aakey at fas.harvard.edu>
Subject: [labnetwork] Shadow Mask for "Location Grid"

Hello Folks,

I have a puzzle (hopefully already solved) that I am working on:

We would like a way to locate regions of interest (ROI) on uneven substrates that other collaborators have submitted for various analysis techniques, i.e. EDS, FIB, SIMS, etc.

Our thinking was we could project a gold "finder grid" onto uneven substrates, which the collaborators could use to define the precise location of their ROI before handing samples off to us for analysis.  We might even send these out to collaborators beforehand for "pre-marking" their samples, to save time.

A "fine grid" shadow mask came to mind, ideally having numbered columns/rows, which could be used, in combination with a gold evaporator, to create the "finder grid" on the samples of rock, brick, pottery shards, etc.

The questions:

Does such a thing exist already?

What is the maximum practical "throw distance" of a shadow mask, such that one could position the shadow mask over an uneven substrate (peak-to-valley not more than a mm) and still get a reasonably continuous and well defined pattern.

What thickness of shadow-mask foil would be reasonably robust?  What would be reasonable minimum line-widths?

We know about correlated microscopy and the associated registration systems, but these would not be viable as our collaborators will not typically have these systems available on their preliminary screening equipment (optical microscope, electron microprobe, etc)

Note that this grid would not be used for measurement of any kind, only for providing a visual reference that could be transmitted via... text message, for instance.  As such, grid distortion would be okay, as long as the rows/columns could be discerned.

I welcome your thoughts!


Mac
Harvard CNS


--

Mac Hathaway

Senior Process and Systems Engineer

Harvard Center for Nanoscale Systems

11 Oxford St.

Cambridge, MA  02138

617-495-9012


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