Dissipation signals due to lateral tip oscillations in FM-AFM

Abstract

We study the coupling of lateral and normal tip oscillations and its effect on the imaging process of frequency-modulated dynamic atomic force microscopy. The coupling is induced by the interaction between tip and surface. Energy is transferred from the normal to the lateral excitation, which can be detected as damping of the cantilever oscillation. However, energy can be transferred back into the normal oscillation, if not dissipated by the usually uncontrolled mechanical damping of the lateral excitation. For certain cantilevers, this dissipation mechanism can lead to dissipation rates larger than 0.01 eV per period. The mechanism produces an atomic contrast for ionic crystals with two maxima per unit cell in a line scan.