Detection of the acoustic interferences during AFM operation

Atomic force microscopy is a particularly complicated surface imaging technique due to the large number of factors that affect the quality of the resulting images. They are obviously difficult and sometimes even impossible to control at the same time. One of such factors may even be the seismological location of the building or the influence of mechanical vibrations caused by nearby traffic [1]. The attached data shows the effect of acoustic vibrations caused intentionally by the operator, which are clearly visible as interference in the image, appearing despite the operation of an active anti-vibration system designed to prevent such situations. Measurements were made on the surface of gold, the structure of which was not of interest, it was only to be a background for the appearing distortions, visible as periodic image deformations, correlated with the moments of turning on the sound generator, and with the frequency of the emitted tone. The collection contains 14 images taken in the semi-contact mode with the NSG30 probe.
[1]       S. Yi, Q. Zou, A Finite-Impulse-Response-Based Approach to Control Acoustic-Caused Probe-Vibration in Atomic Force Microscope Imaging, 2017. doi:10.1115/DSCC2017-5103.