Patent ID: 8443461
Filing Date: 2013-05-14
Classification: G01Q

Abstract:
1. Atomic force spectroscopy method, characterized in that, that interatomic forces are quantitatively recorded between the front-most tip atom and an electronic orbital of the opposing sample atom using an atomic force microscope with at least atomic lateral resolution or better, wherein the atomic force microscope employs a passive drift compensation with respect to minimizing the x-y-z-drift of the cantilever as well as the x-y-z-drift of the sample, and with respect to each other, avoiding drift before it occurs in an experiment or a measurement, wherein backbone components (base plate and vertical plate) serve as a heat reservoir or a heat sink for the entire atomic force microscope, fabricated from low thermal conductivity at high heat capacity, thus very slowly thermally equilibrating materials, which further exhibit extreme hardness, stiffness, high specific weight, whereby any alternative selection of a set of materials fundamentally suitable for the mechanical design and construction is selected such that the specific types of physical material properties are maximized or minimized respectively, hence an optimizing selection is performed within the fundamentally suitable options of materials and are thus optimized, wherein the cantilever holder is fabricated from materials having said properties desired for backbone components, wherein all mechanical tilt- and vertical adjustment stages such as a sample scanner stage, are made from light but rapidly thermally equilibrating, high thermal conductivity at still moderately low thermal expansion coefficient and at still high specific heat capacity materials, while in preferred embodiments bearings of these mechanical adjustment stages are chosen extremely hard, whereby any alternative selection of a set of materials fundamentally suitable for the mechanical design and construction is selected such that the specific types of physical material properties are maximized or minimized respectively, hence an optimizing selection is performed within the fundamentally suitable options of materials and are thus optimized.