Simultaneous measurement of normal and friction forces using a cantilever-based optical interfacial force microscope

We measured normal and friction forces simultaneously using a recently developed cantilever-based optical interfacial force microscope technique for studies of interfacial structures and mechanical properties of nanoscale materials. We derived how the forces can be incorporated into the detection signal using the classical Euler equation for beams. A lateral modulation with the amplitude of nanometers was applied to create the friction forces between tip and sample. We demonstrated its capability by measuring normal and friction forces of interfacial water at the molecular scale over all distance ranges. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3593106]