Design and Fabrication of a High-Speed Atomic Force Microscope Scan-Head

Abstract

A high-speed atomic force microscope (HS-AFM) requires a specialized set of hardware and software and therefore improving video-rate HS-AFMs for general applications is an ongoing process. To improve the imaging rate of an AFM, all components have to be carefully redesigned since the slowest component determines the overall bandwidth of the instrument. In this work, we present a design of a compact HS-AFM scan-head featuring minimal loading on the Z-scanner. Using a custom-programmed controller and a high-speed lateral scanner, we demonstrate its working by obtaining topographic images of Blu-ray disk data tracks in contact- and tapping-modes. Images acquired using a contact-mode cantilever with a natural frequency of 60 kHz in constant deflection mode show good tracking of topography at 400 Hz. In constant height mode, tracking of topography is demonstrated at rates up to 1.9 kHz for the scan size of 1μm×1μm with 100×100 pixels.

Revolutionizing the structural design and determination of covalent–organic frameworks: principles, methods, and techniques

“…These artefacts have the potential to impact the accurate characterization of the sample surface and can be mitigated through improvements in the feedback controller and similar approaches. 365 It is important not to overlook the influence of image processing techniques, such as levelling and filtering processes. Levelling based on polynomial fitting, low-pass filters, and Fourier filters is commonly employed, but these approaches can easily introduce artificial or distorted features in SPM images (Fig.…”