Dynamics of damped cantilevers

In atomic force microscopy cantilevers are used to detect forces caused by interactions between probing tip and sample. The minimum forces which can b e detected with commercial sensors are typically in the range of 10(-12) N. In the future, the aim will be to construct sensors with improved sensitiv ities to detect forces in the range of 10(-18) N. These sensors could be us ed for mass spectroscopy or magnetic resonance force microscopy. Achieving this goal requires smaller sensors and increased quality factor Q. In this article we describe a model to characterize the dynamics of cantilevers of each eigenmode. In contrast to previous models, the damping is treated rigo rously in the calculations. (C) 2000 American Institute of Physics. [S0034- 6748(00)03507-3].