ACCURATE PICOSCALE FORCES FOR INSITU CALIBRATION OF AFM

Koo-Hyun Chung, Gordon Shaw, Jon R. Pratt

Abstract

The force sensitivity of an atomic force microscope is calibrated directly using an in situ realization of primary electrostatic forces ranging from 320 pN to 3.3 nN with accuracy of a few percent. The absolute accuracy of a common atomic force microscope (AFM) force calibration scheme, known as the thermal noise method is evaluated via comparison to the electrostatic calibration. It is demonstrated that the thermal noise method can be applied with great success to yield force measurements with relative standard uncertainties below 5 % after application of a geometric correction factor.

Keywords

electrostatics, atomic force microscope, piconewton

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IMEKO-WC-2009-TC3-285.pdf

DOI

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IMEKO TC

TC3 - Measurement of Force, Mass, Torque, and Gravity

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