Otieno Luke Oduor, Alunda Bernard Ouma, Kim Jaehyun, Lee Yong Joong
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Kyungpook National University, Daegu 41566, Korea.
School of Mines and Engineering, Taita Taveta University, P.O. Box 635, Voi 80300, Kenya.
Sensors (Basel). 2021 Jan 7;21(2):362. doi: 10.3390/s21020362.
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 1μm×1μm with 100×100 pixels.
高速原子力显微镜（HS-AFM）需要一套专门的硬件和软件，因此改进适用于一般应用的视频速率HS-AFM是一个持续的过程。为了提高原子力显微镜的成像速率，由于最慢的组件决定了仪器的整体带宽，所有组件都必须仔细重新设计。在这项工作中，我们展示了一种紧凑型HS-AFM扫描头的设计，其在Z扫描仪上的负载最小。使用定制编程的控制器和高速横向扫描仪，我们通过在接触模式和轻敲模式下获取蓝光磁盘数据轨道的地形图来展示其工作原理。在恒定偏转模式下，使用固有频率为60 kHz的接触模式悬臂获取的图像在400 Hz时显示出对地形的良好跟踪。在恒定高度模式下，对于1μm×1μm的扫描尺寸和100×100像素，在高达1.9 kHz的速率下展示了对地形的跟踪。
