Method and system in optical microscopy based on the deflection of micro- and nanomechanical structures, upon impact of a laser beam thereon, which simultaneously and automatically provides a spatial map of the static deflection and of the form of various vibration modes, with vertical resolution in the subangstrom range. The invention comprises at least one mechanical structure, an incident laser beam sweeping the surface of the structure, an optometric detector for capturing the laser beam, and frequency excitation means that generate at least two sinusoidal signals at different frequencies in the mechanical structure.

An apparatus and method of operating an atomic force profiler (AFP), such as an AFM, using a feedforward control signal in subsequent scan lines of a large area sample to achieve large throughput advantages in, for example, automated applications.

An apparatus and method of operating an atomic force profiler (AFP), such as an AFM, using a feedforward control signal in subsequent scan lines of a large area sample to achieve large throughput advantages in, for example, automated applications.

An atomic force microscope includes a cantilever operating in amplitude modulation mode. A controller determines the amplitude of the cantilever oscillation by processing a signal representative of the cantilever motion by square-rooting a signal having a value substantially equal to a sum of a square of the received signal and a squared and phase-shifted version of the received signal. The aforementioned processing, in some implementations is implemented using analog circuit components.

Provided is a scanning probe microscope, and in particular, a scanning probe microscope capable of scanning a large area using a probe including a plurality of conductive tips and capable of simply generating a surface image of a sample with high resolution by recognizing only two binary states of contact/non-contact between the conductive tips and a surface of the sample.

The present application relates to an apparatus for a scanning probe microscope, said apparatus having: (a) at least one first measuring probe having at least one first cantilever, the free end of which has a first measuring tip; (b) at least one first reflective area arranged in the region of the free end of the at least one first cantilever and embodied to reflect at least two light beams in different directions; and (c) at least two first interferometers embodied to use the at least two light beams reflected by the at least one first reflective area to determine the position of the first measuring tip.

The present application relates to an apparatus for a scanning probe microscope, said apparatus having: (a) at least one first measuring probe having at least one first cantilever, the free end of which has a first measuring tip; (b) at least one first reflective area arranged in the region of the free end of the at least one first cantilever and embodied to reflect at least two light beams in different directions; and (c) at least two first interferometers embodied to use the at least two light beams reflected by the at least one first reflective area to determine the position of the first measuring tip.

A piezoelectric positioning device (1) has at least one piezoelectric actuator (3) having a first connection contact (4) and a second connection contact (5). A control device (6) with digital/analog converters (12, 16) connected to the connection contacts (4, 5) is used to control the at least one piezoelectric actuator (3). In comparison with a coarse converter (12), a fine converter (16) has a comparatively smaller voltage range and lower voltage levels, with the result that a high degree of positioning accuracy can be achieved.

A piezoelectric positioning device (1) has at least one piezoelectric actuator (3) having a first connection contact (4) and a second connection contact (5). A control device (6) with digital/analog converters (12, 16) connected to the connection contacts (4, 5) is used to control the at least one piezoelectric actuator (3). In comparison with a coarse converter (12), a fine converter (16) has a comparatively smaller voltage range and lower voltage levels, with the result that a high degree of positioning accuracy can be achieved.

The present application relates to a method for avoiding damage when analyzing a sample surface with a scanning probe microscope, the method comprising the step of: detecting an electrostatic interaction between a charging of the sample surface and a measuring tip of the scanning probe microscope in the course of the approach of the measuring tip to the sample surface already at a distance from the sample surface which is greater than the distance of the measuring tip when analyzing the sample surface.