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 with pixels.
Highlights
In atomic force microscopy (AFM), scanning speed is affected by all components of the instrument
As an alternative to the small cantilevers required for high-speed imaging, another approach enhances the stiffness of large active cantilevers using force feedback in order to achieve high-speed imaging of large biological samples [18]
The two beams are passed through a polarizing beamsplitter (PBS) (PBS102, Thorlabs) which allows the s-polarized light to be reflected by 90◦ towards a quarter-wave plate (QWP)
Summary
In atomic force microscopy (AFM), scanning speed is affected by all components of the instrument. In sample scan HS-AFMs, the sample is mounted on an integrated XYZ-scanner [4,6,13,23] The advantage of this method is that it simplifies the overall mechanical design of the head and tracking of the optical beam. This approach limits the specimen size because of the limited dimensions of the sample stage usually mounted on top of a small high-speed Z-scanner. Reducing laser tracking complexity increases the potential scan range of our system compared with tip scan HS-AFMs. Combined tip-sample scan approaches reported in References [12,27] do not integrate photothermal cantilever drive that can potentially be used for stable tapping mode imaging in all environments. Unlike in References [12,27], the cantilever plane is normal to the incident beam to potentially reduce OBD errors emanating from the displacement of the Z-scanner during imaging [28]
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