Multimodal atomic force microscopy with optimized higher eigenmode sensitivity using on-chip piezoelectric actuation and sensing.

Atomic force microscope (AFM) cantilevers with integrated actuation and sensing provide several distinct advantages over conventional cantilever instrumentation. These include clean frequency responses, the possibility of down-scaling and parallelization to cantilever arrays as well as the absence of optical interference. While cantilever microfabrication technology has continuously advanced over the years, the overall design has remained largely unchanged; a passive rectangular shaped cantilever design has been adopted as the industry wide standard.

Multimodal cantilevers with novel piezoelectric layer topology for sensitivity enhancement.

Self-sensing techniques for atomic force microscope (AFM) cantilevers have several advantageous characteristics compared to the optical beam deflection method. The possibility of down scaling, parallelization of cantilever arrays and the absence of optical interference associated imaging artifacts have led to an increased research interest in these methods. However, for multifrequency AFM, the optimization of the transducer layout on the cantilever for higher order modes has not been addressed.