On-line sensing and visual feedback for atomic force microscopy (AFM) based nano-manipulations

Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) is a powerful and popular technique of single-molecule imaging both in air and liquid. Recent research and hardware development provide AFM with the function of manipulation nano-particle and modify sample surface in nano-scale. However, due to AFM usually takes several minutes to get an image and the surface change is hard to observe in real-time manipulation. In this paper, a novel approach for on-line sensing and display method is proposed and used for updating the surface change during the manipulation of cell. In this approach a cutting force detection model is used for cutting depth judgment. In addition, an adaptive local-scan strategy is involved here to get the topography of the local surface. Finally a display model is used to update the change of the surface during the manipulation. With this novel scheme the process of cell cutting become real-time visualized. So, AFM tip could work as an efficient nanolithography or cutting tool.