A miniaturized, high frequency mechanical scanner for high speed atomic force microscope using suspension on dynamically determined points

Journal article (2015)

Authors

R. Herfst TNO
B. Dekker TNO
H. Sadeghian Marnani TNO, Computational Design and Mechanics - Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering
Research Group
Computational Design and Mechanics (Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering) (TU Delft)
Copyright: © 2015 R. Herfst, B. Dekker, G. Witvoet, W.E. Crowcombe, D. de Lange, H. Sadeghian Marnani
Aluminium Atomic force microscopy Atomic force microscopes Image scanners Position sensitive detectors
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Published Date

2015

Language

English

Faculty

Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering

Department

Precision and Microsystems Engineering

Research Group

Computational Design and Mechanics

Abstract

One of the major limitations in the speed of the atomic force microscope (AFM) is the bandwidth of the mechanical scanning stage, especially in the vertical (z) direction. According to the design principles of “light and stiff” and “static determinacy,” the bandwidth of the mechanical scanner is limited by the first eigenfrequency of the AFM head in case of tip scanning and by the sample stage
in terms of sample scanning. Due to stringent requirements of the system, simply pushing the first eigenfrequency to an ever higher value has reached its limitation. We have developed a miniaturized, high speed AFM scanner in which the dynamics of the z-scanning stage are made insensitive to its surrounding dynamics via suspension of it on specific dynamically determined points. This
resulted in a mechanical bandwidth as high as that of the z-actuator (50 kHz) while remaining insensitive to the dynamics of its base and surroundings. The scanner allows a practical z scan range of 2.1 µm. We have demonstrated the applicability of the scanner to the high speed scanning of nanostructures.