Lorentz Contact Resonance Imaging for Atomic Force Microscopes: Probing Mechanical and Thermal Properties on the Nanoscale

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) has been widely used in both industry and academia for imaging the surface topography of a material with nanoscale resolution. However, often little other information is obtained. Contact resonance AFM (CR-AFM) is a technique that can provide information about the viscoelastic properties of a material in contact with an AFM probe by measuring the contact stiffness between the probe and sample. In CR-AFM, an AFM cantilever is oscillated, and the amplitude and frequency of the resonance modes of the cantilever are monitored. When a probe or sample is oscillated, the tip sample interaction can be approximated as an ideal spring-dashpot system using the Voigt-Kelvin model shown in Figure 1. Contact resonance frequencies of the AFM cantilever will shift depending on the contact stiffness, k, between the tip and sample. The damping effect on the system comes from dissipative tip sample forces such as viscosity and adhesion. Damping, η, is observed in a CR-AFM system by monitoring the amplitude and Q factor of the resonant modes of the cantilever. This contact stiffness and damping information can then be used to obtain information about the viscoelastic properties of the material when fit to an applicable model.