Self Heating of an Atomic Force Microscope

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) is a sensitive technique susceptible to unwanted influences, such as thermal noise, vibrational noise, etc. Although, tools that protect AFM against external noise have been developed and are widely used, there are still many sources of inherent noise. One of them is self-heating of the apparatus. This paper deals with self-heating of the AFM using an optical lever. This phenomenon is shown to be substantial in particular after activation of the microscope. The influence on the intrinsic contact noise of AFM's is also examined.