Design of an advanced atomic force microscope control electronics using FPGA

Official URL: http://risc01.sabanciuniv.edu/record=b1505289 (Table of Contents)

Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) is a great scientific and R&D tool. AFM can obtain 3D surface topography of objects with atomic resolution. AFM can provide images of conductive, non-conductive and also biological samples. Invention of the AFM led to many improvements in the several areas like material science, physics and biology. Additionally, AFM has a wide range of applications like the quality control and production testing in the industry. In spite of AFM's many advantages and specialties, price and the complexity of the available AFM options makes it harder for researchers and companies to reach this technology. To address this issue, easy to use Atomic Force Microscope ezAFM is designed with joint efforts of Sabanci University - "Scanning Probe Microscopy & Nanomagnetism Laboratory", Istanbul Technical University – "Nanomechanics Laboratory" and NanoMagnetics Instruments & NanoSis and with the support of "Ministry of Science, Industry and Technology", through the SANTEZ program. The ezAFM is a user friendly, compact and high performance novel AFM system. The ezAFM is very affordable and similar to a lab grade optical microscope. In this thesis, the Control Electronics design and the PC software architecture of the ezAFM will be discussed.