9D-2 Numerical Modeling of the Cantilever-Tip Vibrations in Scanning Microdeformation Microscope

The Scanning Microdeformation Microscope, as many other scanning probe microscopes developed in the last years, is a kind of ac force microscope. The system consists in an electromechanical oscillator made of a silicon cantilever, a diamond or sapphire tip, associated with a bimorph piezoelectric transducer and a specific amplifier . The specificity of the system is the way of detection of the oscillation frequency performed electrically through the admittance of the piezoelectric transducer. In this paper, we describe the technique of detection involved in the microscope. A nonlinear finite element modeling under the LS-DYNA code of the complete behaviour of the electromechanical oscillator is presented. A comparison of both explicit and implicit algorithms is given. Finally a comparison between experimental and theoretical behaviour shows a very good agreement.