Development of a combined atomic force microscope with an AT-cut quartz resonator

Abstract

To study the microscopic mechanism of energy dissipation due to sliding motion, we are developing a combined atomic force microscope (AFM) with a quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) resonator. In this system, the loading force is controlled by AFM, while the energy dissipation is measured by the change in Q value of the quartz crystal. At room temperature, we have checked the energy dissipation for several substrates as a function of loading force. The energy dissipation depends both on substrate material and on oscillation amplitude.