Atomic force microscope based nanomanipulator for mechanical and optical lithography

An atomic force microscope (AFM) based system has been built for the manipulation of materials at the nanometer scale. The AFM is combined with an inverse optical microscope and an UV-laser microbeam system for photoablation. The actuators of the AFM are controlled using a digital signal processor. Real-time routines and a graphical user interface have been programmed for high resolution imaging and nanomanipulation. The nanomanipulation can be pre-programmed offline or directly performed using a low-cost haptic interface. In this paper, we discuss the whole system and the different methods for manipulation.