The use of a piezoelectric force sensor in the magnetic force microscopy of thin permalloy films.

A piezoelectric force sensor is suggested for magnetic force microscopy (MFM) purposes. Added between the piezoelectric resonator and the magnetic probe is a mechanical force amplifier in the form of a thin, long resonant arm with an integral micro-rod whereby the amplitude of the force acting on the probe is amplified by a factor of 20 to 40 at a low noise level. When the sensor was operated in air, its noise floor was found to be 1.

Vacuum scanning capillary photoemission microscopy.

We demonstrate the use of a conical capillary in a scanning probe microscopy for surface analysis. The probe can measure photoemission from a substrate by transmitting photoelectrons along the capillary as a function of probe position. The technique is demonstrated on a model substrate consisting of a gold reflecting layer on a compact disc which has been illuminated by an unfocused laser beam with a wavelength 400nm, from a femtosecond laser with a beam size of 4mm.

Scanning near-field optical microscope based on a double resonant fibre probe montage and equipped with time-gated photon detection.

We discuss scanning near-field optical microscope based on original double resonant montage of a fibre probe onto the tuning fork and proprietary electronics capable of fast and precise measurements of the resonant frequency and the quality factor of sensor dithering. Special emphasis is given on the pulsed excitation/gated detection of optical signal. This option as well as the possibility of fast scanning facilitates a lot the problem of single fluorescence centres detection.