US 12,298,327 B2
Atomic force microscope
Aleks Labuda, Santa Barbara, CA (US); Basile Pottier, Lyons (FR); and Ludovic Bellon, Le Bois-d'Oingt (FR)
Assigned to Oxford Instruments Asylum Research, Inc., Goleta, CA (US); Ecole Normale Suérieure de Lyon, Lyons (FR); Université Claude Bernanrd Lyon 1, Lyons (FR); and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris (FR)
Appl. No. 18/021,286
Filed by Oxford Instruments Asylum Research, Inc., Santa Barbara, CA (US); Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris (FR); École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, Lyons (FR); and Universite Claude Bernard Lyon 1, Villeurbanne (FR)
PCT Filed Aug. 18, 2021, PCT No. PCT/IB2021/000583
§ 371(c)(1), (2) Date Feb. 14, 2023,
PCT Pub. No. WO2022/038419, PCT Pub. Date Feb. 24, 2022.
Application 18/021,286 is a continuation of application No. 16/996,403, filed on Aug. 18, 2020, granted, now 11,519,935, issued on Dec. 6, 2022.
Prior Publication US 2024/0012021 A1, Jan. 11, 2024
Int. Cl. G01Q 20/02 (2010.01)
CPC G01Q 20/02 (2013.01) 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. An atomic force microscope based interferometer, comprising a light source, for emitting a light beam;
a splitting optical interface, arranged to split the light beam into a signal light beam and a reference light beam;
an AFM cantilever;
an electrically controlled birefringent liquid crystal device, which is electrically operable to modulate an optical path difference between the signal light beam and the reference light beam during a calibration of the interferometer response and electrically deactivated during a measurement of a movement of the cantilever;
optics for guiding the signal light beam and the reference light beam to impinge on two locations in the vicinity of the AFM cantilever, and to guide light reflecting off the said locations; and
a detector that in use receives the guided light reflecting off the said locations and that operates to determine differences in optical path length between the signal light beam and reference light beam to determine information about the movement of the cantilever.