Presentation and improvement of an AFM-based system for the measurement of adhesion forces

The aim of this paper is the presentation and improvement of an AFM-based system dedicated to measure adhesion forces. Because an AFM-lever presents a high linearity and a high resolution, it can be used to characterize forces that appears between two micro-objects when their relative distance is small. In this paper, an AFM is used to evaluate the adhesion forces versus the distance. Especially, the pull-off and the Van Der Waals forces can be quantified. Unfortunately, the presence of the hysteresis on the piezotube distorts the measurement and makes the whole system imprecise. Hence, a Prandtl-Ishlinskii hysteresis compensator is introduced. To show the efficiency of the improved measurement system, experiments on different materials where performed.