The scanning electron microscope (SEM) has a big potential as a metrology instrument for micro and nanotechnology due to its unique combination of three imaging properties:
• Lateral ultimate resolution down to 2nm
• Large range of possible magnification levels ranging from a few hundred times to one hundred thousand times magnification.
• Large depth of field.
Topography reconstruction with this instrument and stereo photogrammetric techniques has been known for a long time. Nowadays, availability of digital SEMs and the advances in computer technology have made it possible to implement such algorithms to the reconstruction of continuous three dimensional data sets. Robust measuring procedures, determination of error sources, quantification of sensitivities and eventually traceability of this measurement tool are still open issues. In this work, an experimental investigation is presented that addresses the performance of 3D topography calculation based on surface topography imaging using secondary electrons and the Stereo Pair Technique.