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13 - Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Metallurgy and Materials
University of Plymouth
Development of a new generation of active AFM tools for applications in liquids
Atomic force microscopy (AFM) is a powerful tool for characterising surface features, such as topography. This paper explains how we use a thin piezoelectric film to actively control the AFM tip very precisely, and how we integrated the probe into a commercial AFM system. In air, the performance of the active probe on samples matched our expectations, although it was limited in water by the reduced Q-factor and lowered resonant frequency of the system. Nonetheless, it has the potential to work well in liquids and, being active, the probe will have increased measurement sensitivity when implemented in a control system.