Effect of contact stiffness modulation in contact-mode AFM under subharmonic excitation

We report on the effect of fast contact stiffness modulation on frequency response to 2:1 subharmonic resonance in contact-mode atomic force microscopy. The model of the contact-mode dynamic between the tip of the microbeam and the moving surface consists of a lumped single degree of freedom Hertzian contact oscillator. Perturbation methods are applied to obtain the frequency response of the slow dynamic of the system. We focus on the effect of the amplitude and the frequency of the modulation on the nonlinear characteristic of the contact stiffness, the jump phenomenon and the shift in the frequency response of the subharmonic. We also show the effect of the contact stiffness modulation on the interval of the unstable trivial solution which is directly correlated to the depth of the jump. The obtained results can directly influence the material properties and the loss of contact between the tip and the sample.

► We report on the effect of contact stiffness modulation in 2:1 subharmonic resonance in contact-mode AFM.
► We consider a lumped single degree of freedom Hertzian contact oscillator.
► We apply perturbation methods to obtain the frequency response of the slow dynamic of the system.
► The contact stiffness and the shift in the frequency can be controlled by monitoring the amplitude of the modulation.