High-speed atomic force microscopy for imaging and generating nanostructures

Scanning probe microscopy (SPM) is the main technique for both the characterization and to a much lesser extent the generation of nanostructures. SPM is a family of microscopy techniques with atomic force microscopy (AFM), scanning tunneling microscopy (STM), and near-field scanning optical microscopy (NSOM) as the most frequently used of these microscopies. Conventional versions of these three microscopes typically require over one minute and up to 10s of minutes to record one image, depending on the nature of the specimen and image size. Improvements in speed are very important for both imaging and fabrication, and high-speed versions of AFM [1,2], the STM [3], and the NSOM [4] have been demonstrated.