Abstract
Self-sensing techniques for atomic force microscope (AFM) cantilevers have several advantageous characteristics compared to the optical beam deflection method. The possibility of down scaling, parallelization of cantilever arrays and the absence of optical interference associated imaging artifacts have led to an increased research interest in these methods. However, for multifrequency AFM, the optimization of the transducer layout on the cantilever for higher order modes has not been addressed. To fully utilize an integrated piezoelectric transducer, this work alters the layout of the piezoelectric layer to maximize both the deflection of the cantilever and measured piezoelectric charge response for a given mode with respect to the spatial distribution of the strain. On a prototype cantilever design, significant increases in actuator and sensor sensitivities were achieved for the first four modes without any substantial increase in sensor noise. The transduction mechanism is specifically targeted at multifrequency AFM and has the potential to provide higher resolution imaging on higher order modes.
Highlights
The invention of the atomic force microscope (AFM) [1] provided for the observation of the nanoscale like no other tool before it [2]
Since the cantilevers proposed in this work do not feature tips for AFM imaging, the feedthrough is identified and removed off-line to highlight the increase in sensor sensitivity
An AFM cantilever with a piezoelectric layer is a versatile transducer for both actuation and displacement sensing
Summary
The invention of the atomic force microscope (AFM) [1] provided for the observation of the nanoscale like no other tool before it [2]. The AFM uses a sharp probe tip at the free end of a cantilever to interrogate and image the surface of a sample [11,12,13]. When using the AFM in dynamic mode [14], the cantilever is excited at its fundamental modal frequency and the probe lightly taps the surface of the sample. Observed changes in the amplitude, phase or frequency shift of the cantilever’s motion correlate to properties of the sample [15]. When closing a feedback loop around these observables with the z-axis nanopositioner, the controller output is routinely used to map the surface topography of the sample. The additional excitation and detection with multiple frequencies has led to vast improvements in Beilstein J.
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