Calibration of Lateral sensitivity of AFM cantilever (mV/nm)
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I would like to calibrate the lateral sensitivity of the AFM cantilever. Most of the calibration methods are focused on calibrating the frictional forces and bypass obtaining the lateral sensitivity. For methods such as lateral piezo-response force microscopy, there is no need to know the frictional forces, but just the in-plan displacement of the sample surface.
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Depending on the type of probe you are using, the lateral deflection sensitivity can be obtained in a way that is analogous to vertical force-displacement curves. Instead, the probe is pressed laterally against a vertical sidewall of, for example, a cleaved cubic crystal (NaCl, KBr...) or GaAs, as in the paper: RSI 77, 053701 (2006). This works well for spherical probe tips. If you can't use those in your experiment, ultimately, you can use an identical lever with a sphere ("test probe" in the paper) and convert sensitivities according the discussion in the paper (basically, account for probe vs. tip location and differences in total signal).