Design and Validation of a Low Cost High Speed Atomic Force Microscope

Location

CSU 202

Start Date

11-4-2017 1:05 PM

End Date

11-4-2017 2:05 PM

Student's Major

Integrated Engineering

Student's College

Science, Engineering and Technology

Mentor's Name

Robert Sleezer

Mentor's Department

Integrated Engineering

Mentor's College

Science, Engineering and Technology

Description

The Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) is an important tool for characterization at the nanoscale. They operate by rastering an atomically sharp needle attached to a flexible cantilever across a surface while using an optical lever to measure the tip sample interaction. A control loop is used to keep the tip sample interaction constant. The output of the control loop is used to determine the topography of the surface. Unfortunately, the complex optical and control systems in an AFM make them both expensive and slow. Fortunately, DVD Optical Pickup Units (OPUs) are designed to measure and compensate for wobble in DVD disks to maintain laser focus at the nanoscale with a high bandwidth. Because DVD players are high volume consumer electronics these OPUs are widely available and optimized for both cost and performance. However, interfacing with an OPU is a difficult task because the documentation available for it was scarce and, at times, inaccurate. With further research and experimentation, the authors were able to reverse engineer aspects of OPU that were poorly documented and design a circuit to power a KSS-213C OPU. Additionally, circuits were designed to collect distance data from the KSS-213C. A test structure was designed to demonstrate the capability of the KSS-213C to make nanoscale measurements. The precision of the KSS-213C was measured and is reported.

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Apr 11th, 1:05 PM Apr 11th, 2:05 PM

Design and Validation of a Low Cost High Speed Atomic Force Microscope

CSU 202

The Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) is an important tool for characterization at the nanoscale. They operate by rastering an atomically sharp needle attached to a flexible cantilever across a surface while using an optical lever to measure the tip sample interaction. A control loop is used to keep the tip sample interaction constant. The output of the control loop is used to determine the topography of the surface. Unfortunately, the complex optical and control systems in an AFM make them both expensive and slow. Fortunately, DVD Optical Pickup Units (OPUs) are designed to measure and compensate for wobble in DVD disks to maintain laser focus at the nanoscale with a high bandwidth. Because DVD players are high volume consumer electronics these OPUs are widely available and optimized for both cost and performance. However, interfacing with an OPU is a difficult task because the documentation available for it was scarce and, at times, inaccurate. With further research and experimentation, the authors were able to reverse engineer aspects of OPU that were poorly documented and design a circuit to power a KSS-213C OPU. Additionally, circuits were designed to collect distance data from the KSS-213C. A test structure was designed to demonstrate the capability of the KSS-213C to make nanoscale measurements. The precision of the KSS-213C was measured and is reported.

Recommended Citation

Ganzer, Michael and Tien Pham. "Design and Validation of a Low Cost High Speed Atomic Force Microscope." Undergraduate Research Symposium, Mankato, MN, April 11, 2017.
https://cornerstone.lib.mnsu.edu/urs/2017/oral-session-10/1