Optical knife-edge displacement sensor for high-speed atomic force microscopy

We show that an optical knife-edge technique can be used to detect the parallel shift of an object with sub-nanometer resolution over a wide bandwidth. This allows to design simple, contact-free, and high-speed displacement sensors that can be implemented in high-speed atomic force microscope scanners. In an experimental setup, we achieved a root-mean-square sensor noise of 0.8 nm within a bandwidth from 1Hz to 1.1 MHz. We used this sensor to detect and correct the nonlinear z-piezo displacement during force curves acquired with rates of up to 5 kHz. We discuss the fundamental resolution limit and the linearity of the sensor. (C) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.