"Noiseless" thermal noise measurement of atomic force microscopy cantilevers

Abstract

When measuring quadratic values representative of random fluctuations, such as the thermal noise of Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) cantilevers, the background measurement noise cannot be averaged to zero. We present a signal processing method that allows to get rid of this limitation using the ubiquitous optical beam deflection sensor of standard AFMs. We demonstrate a two orders of magnitude enhancement of the signal to noise ratio in our experiment, allowing the calibration of stiff cantilevers or easy identification of higher order modes from thermal noise measurements.

References in corpus (7)

• Observation of squeezed light with 10dB quantum noise reduction
• Surpassing the standard quantum limit for optical imaging using non-classical multimode light
• Ultrasensitive measurement of MEMS cantilever displacement sensitivity below the shot noise limit
• Quantum limits in the measurement of very small displacements in optical images
• Resonance frequency shift of strongly heated micro-cantilevers
• Single beam interferometric angle measurement
• Direct optical observations of surface thermal motions at sub-shot noise levels

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Extended equipartition in a mechanical system subject to a heat flow: the case of localised dissipation
• Design, fabrication and characterization of kinetic-inductive force sensors for scanning probe applications
• Nonlinear Atomic Force Microscopy: Squeezing and Skewness of Micro-Mechanical Oscillators interacting with a Surface