Scanning probe microscopy (SPM) is crucial to modern nanoscience because it excels at structural imaging and manipulation down to the tens of nanometers even in ambient, vacuum, and liquid environments. However, SPM ignores energy loss and dissipation, instead focusing on conserved energy. In fact, measuring dissipation is extremely difficult because it’s only obtainable at resonant frequency peaks, which must be laboriously sequentially scanned.

The Adaptive band excitation controller and software for scanning probe microscopy, researched and developed by Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tenn., and Asylum Research Corp., Santa Barbara, Calif., is able to make these measurements at a much faster rate than previous efforts by using non-sinusoidal driving signals to scan all resonant frequencies at once. This reduces image acquisition to just 10 min vs 10 hours for normal SPM. This controller opens the door to new applications based on rapid probing of transfer function systems, including the customization of excitation signal, detection of non-linear responses, and digital Q-control.