NOISE-ANALYSIS AND IMAGE FOCUSING FOR MAGNETIC FORCE MICROSCOPY

Magnetic force microscopy (MFM) has been widely utilized to reveal mag netization distributions by sensing the external magnetic-field distri bution very close to the sample. The resolution of MFM is determined b y the size of the sensor tip and by the spacing between the tip and th e measured sample. A technique is developed to analyze the noise and l inearity of a MFM image, and consequently to improve the spatial resol ution by reducing the spacing loss. As a demonstration, a series of MF M images of a single permalloy particle is obtained and numerically an alyzed. The spacing loss is reduced and a much higher resolution image is obtained.