A miniature fibre optic force microscope scan head

The authors have built a fibre optic force microscope scan head which scans the cantilever relative to a fixed sample. The design enables the fibre-to-cantilever distance to be altered by moving the fibre relative to the fixed cantilever. This design feature is particularly important when using the variable deflection mode and for acquiring force versus distance curves. The interferometer system reaches a resolution of 0.01 nm (peak-to-peak).