CONTINUOUS TEMPORAL EVOLUTION METHOD AND IMPLEMENTATION THEREOF IN ORDER TO OPTIMISE THE FREQUENCY RESPONSE OF A FORCE MICROSCOPE

摘要

The invention relates to an oscillating mode force microscope (AFM) which has been transformed into one of the most powerful techniques used to characterise surfaces on a nanometric scale. However, the use thereof in liquid media is greatly conditioned by the decline in the quality factor (Q) of the microlever of the AFM. The aforementioned decline, which is the result of an increase in the hydrodynamic friction with the fluid, produces effects such as a reduction in topography sensitivity, slower microscope operation and the presence of greater forces on the sample. As a result, different modes of effectively increasing factor Q have been developed. Nonetheless, all of the analyses of earlier methods are based on the hypothesis of a stationary response.