Signal generation in dynamic interferometric displacement detection

chemistry Medicinal and pharmaceutical chemistry Nano- and molecular-scale electronics Nano-biomaterials and bioscience Nanomagnetics Nanomaterials, thin films and nanointerfaces Nanomedicine Nanometrology and nanomechanics Nano-optics Nanopatterning, self-assembly and nanofabrication Nanostructures for energy and sensing applications Natural products chemistry Organo main group chemistry Other nanotechnology (unclassified) Other organic chemistry (unclassified) Photochemistry and photovoltaics Physical organic chemistry Supramolecular chemistry Laser interferometry is a well-established and widely used technique for precise displacement measurements. In a non-contact atomic force microscope (NC-AFM) it facilitates the force measurement by recording the periodic displacement of an oscillating micro-cantilever. To understand signal generation in a NC-AFM based on a Michelson type interferometer, we evaluate the non-linear response of the interferometer to the harmonic displacement of the cantilever in the time domain. As the interferometer signal is limited in amplitude due to the spatial periodicity of the interferometer light field, an increasing cantilever oscillation amplitude creates an output signal with an increasingly complex temporal structure. By the fit of a model to the measured time-domain signal, all parameters governing the interferometric displacement signal can be precisely determined. It is demonstrated, that such an analysis specifically allows the calibration of the cantilever oscillation amplitude with 0.15% accuracy.

force microscopy, NC-AFM, displacement detection, interferometer signal, amplitude calibration When a peer-reviewed version of this preprint is available, this information will be updated in the information box above. If no peer-reviewed version is available, please cite this preprint using the following information: Khachatryan, K.; Anter, S.; Reichling, M.; von Schmidsfeld, A. Beilstein Arch. 2024, 202429. doi:10.3762/bxiv.2024.29.v1 Citation data can be downloaded as file using the "Download" button or used for copy/paste from the text window below. Citation data in RIS format can be imported by all major citation management software, including EndNote, ProCite, RefWorks, and Zotero. © 2024 Khachatryan et al.; licensee Beilstein-Institut. This is an open access work licensed under the terms of the Beilstein-Institut Open Access License Agreement (https://www.beilstein-archives.org/xiv/terms), which is identical to the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0). The reuse of material under this license requires that the author(s), source and license are credited. Third-party material in this work could be subject to other licenses (typically indicated in the credit line), and in this case, users are required to obtain permission from the license holder to reuse the material.