(American Institute of Physics, 2012) Huefner, Magdalena; Pivonka, Adam; Kim, Jeehoon; Ye, Cun; Forsythe, Martin Blood Zwirner; Zech, Martin; Hoffman, Jenny
We introduce a versatile method to control the quality factor Q of a conducting cantilever in an atomic force microscope (AFM) via capacitive coupling to the local environment. Using this method, Q may be reversibly tuned to within ~ 10% of any desired value over several orders of magnitude. A point-mass oscillator model describes the measured effect. Our simple Q control module increases the AFM functionality by allowing greater control of parameters such as scan speed and force gradient sensitivity, which we demonstrate by topographic imaging of a VO\(_{2}\) thin film in high vacuum.
