Design of a Room Temperature AFM

An Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) is very important in helping to discover properties of quantum materials that have huge applications to society and have paved the way for fundamental scientific breakthroughs. Although there are many commercial AFMs available, most of them are expensive and not affordable to an undergraduate institution. Our motivation is to build a low-cost room temperature AFM that would allow undergraduate institution like ours to do research on quantum materials. AFM is essentially made up of a closed loop feedback system consisting of a piezo tube, cantilever tip, and a coarse positioning system. Without a thorough mechanical design utilizing each of these parts, this instrument would be useless. Before constructing a room temperature model, it is important to test mechanical parts like the coarse positioning system, which is essential to the design. We present design and implementation of a low-cost room temperature AFM. This AFM allows for quantum imaging experiments in an affordable way.