Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering Commons^™

Accounting For The Stiffnesses Of The Probe And Sample In Scanning Probe Microscopy*, Nancy Burnham

Nancy A. Burnham

The elements of a scanning probe microscope are modeled as a set of springs in series. For a single‐component sample, that is, a sample consisting of only one material, the detected feature height in variable force (force microscopy) or variable current (tunneling microscopy) modes is a function of the total system stiffness and the stiffness of the detector. For a multicomponent sample, the data in both variable force (current) and constant force (current) modes are modified by the set‐point force, the detector stiffness, and the relative stiffnesses of the components of the sample. A detection scheme for reducing this compliance …