The Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) is being used to solve processing and materials problems in a wide range of technologies affecting the electronics, telecommunications, biological, chemical, automotive, aerospace, and energy industries. The materials being investigating include thin and thick film coatings, ceramics, composites, glasses, synthetic and biological membranes, metals, polymers, and semiconductors. The AFM is being applied to studies of phenomena such as abrasion, adhesion, cleaning, corrosion, etching, friction, lubrication, plating, and polishing. By using AFM one can not only image the surface in atomic resolution but also measure the force at nano-newton scale. The publications related to the AFM are growing speedily since its birth.

The principles on how the AFM works are very simple. An atomically sharp tip is scanned over a surface with feedback mechanisms that enable the piezo-electric scanners to maintain the tip at a constant force (to obtain height information), or height (to obtain force information) above the sample surface. Tips are typically made from Si3N4 or Si, and extended down from the end of a cantilever. The nanoscope AFM head employs an optical detection system in which the tip is attached to the underside of a reflective cantilever. A diode laser is focused onto the back of a reflective cantilever. As the tip scans the surface of the sample, moving up and down with the contour of the surface, the laser beam is deflected off the attached cantilever into a dual element photodiode. The photodetector measures the difference in light intensities between the upper and lower photodetectors, and then converts to voltage. Feedback from the photodiode difference signal, through software control from the computer, enables the tip to maintain either a constant force or constant height above the sample. In the constant force mode the piezo-electric transducer monitors real time height deviation. In the constant height mode the deflection force on the sample is recorded. The latter mode of operation requires calibration parameters of the scanning tip to be inserted in the sensitivity of the AFM head during force calibration of the microscope.