Nondestructive techniques for a high resolution characterization of materials

Microsystem technology is qualitative challenge in the field of nondestructive testing. On the one side, this is due to the size of the specimens and on the other side, to the large quantity of the components to be tested. Since in many cases the testing speed does not correlate to these demands, the focal point of the application of nondestructive testing in microsystem technologies lies in the field of material and technology development. Because of the increase of the resolution capacity of nondestructive methods and the miniaturization of the sensors, resolutions in the micrometer range can be obtained which are demanded by microsystem technology. This paper tries to give a global view of potentials of different nondestructive high resoultion testing methods for the ndt characterization of materials in microsystem technology and tries to show possible tendencies in development.