Thermal tune methods (sader method) is most widely used today for calibrate spring constant of AFM cantilever.
Thermal tune methods use resonance frequency and Q factor from power spectral density (noise/frequency graph) graph, while cantilever excited only thermally without external excitation.
How much difference at resonance frequency and Q value, between 2 excitation methods - thermal and mechanical drive (piezo) - are expected?
I found a page about this
https://www.nanosurf.com/en/application/spring-constant-calibration-by-frequency-sweep
that tell using frequency and Q from frequency sweep - mechanically excited - only give less than 2% error to final calibration results with thermal methods, without reference.
Is that error value (less than 2%) is trustworthy?
If then, can you suggest any reference about that?
thanks,
Dear Jae,
The Sader method is suitable to calculate the spring constant of rectangular-shaped cantilevers. However, the uncertainty level is quite high for non-rectangular cantilevers.
Thermal tune is good for cantilevers with low spring constant values. The uncertainty level goes up if the cantilever is too stiff.
So I think, the 2% they are talking about should depends on many factors, such as surrounding environment, type of cantilevers etc..
The following are some papers that might have what you need:
Article Accurate determination of spring constant of atomic force mi...
Article Precision and accuracy of thermal calibration of atomic forc...
Article Calibration of Rectangular Atomic Force Microscope Cantilevers
Best regards,
Cuong
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