Architecture of zero-latency ultrafast amplitude detector for high-speed atomic force microscopy

Abstract

The advent of high-speed atomic force microscopy has revolutionized the field of biological science. However, there remains a myriad of phenomena that cannot be observed due to their near-instantaneous dynamics. Improving the temporal resolution is the first step toward observing these biofunctional dynamics. So far, the narrow bandwidth of the amplitude detector circuit has been a major obstacle to this objective. Here, we invent a differential-based ultrafast amplitude detection method with zero intrinsic latency based on the basic trigonometric theorem. We demonstrate that our method manifests superior performance over the conventional methods in respect of the bandwidth and noninvasiveness. This will be a breakthrough in the development of faster high-speed atomic force microscopy.