Nanotopography Imaging using a Heated Microcantilever in Tapping Mode

This paper describes tapping mode atomic force microscopy (AFM) using a heated AFM cantilever. Electrical and thermal characterization of the cantilever reveals that the cantilever is in thermal steady state in resonance oscillation, because its thermal time constant, around 300 μs, is much slower than the oscillation frequency of 70.36 kHz. Topographical imaging was performed on silicon calibration gratings of height 20 and 100 nm. The obtained topography sensitivity is as high as 200 μV/nm and the resolution is as good as 0.5 nm/Hz
^½
. As in conventional AFM, the tapping mode operation demonstrated here can suppress imaging artifacts and enable imaging of soft samples.