Image-based measurement of periodic SPM trajectories

In this paper, measurement of periodic nano-scale scanning probe microscope (SPM) trajectories is achieved by extracting position information from images of standard SPM calibration samples. Image-based approaches have been applied to the measurement of low-speed effects and for the measurement and control of high-speed sinusoidal trajectories. The main contribution of this paper is the application of image-based methods to measure general periodic trajectories that can be represented by a truncated Fourier series. The image-based trajectory measurement approach is discussed in the context of a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) example and simulation results are presented that show the validity of the developed method.