Stochastic simulation of tip-sample interactions in atomic force microscopy

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) simulators, which are used to gain insight into tip-sample physics and data interpretation, so far have been optimized for modeling deterministic cantilever dynamics. In this article, we demonstrate a method for semi-empirical simulation of the stochastic dynamics of tip-sample interactions. The detection, force, and displacement noises are separately generated directly from their numerically defined power spectral densities and used to simulate a force spectroscopy experiment in water at the mica interface. Mechanical noise of the AFM is shown to dominate over thermal noise of the cantilever upon interaction with the last two hydration layers. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4745781]