Design of mechanical components for vibration reduction in an atomic force microscope

Abstract

Vibration is a key factor to be considered when designing the mechanical components of a high precision and high speed atomic force microscope (AFM). It is required to design the mechanical components so that they have resonant frequencies higher than the external and internal vibration frequencies. In this work, the mechanical vibration in a conventional AFM system is analyzed by considering its mechanical components, and a vibration reduction is then achieved by reconfiguring the mechanical components. To analyze the mechanical vibration, a schematic of the lumped model of the AFM system is derived and the vibrational influences of the AFM components are experimentally examined. Based on this vibration analysis, a reconfigured AFM system is proposed and its effects are compared to a conventional system through a series of simulations and experiments. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3531948]