Cross-scale high-bandwidth atomic force microscopy with a stick-slip nanopositioner

The core of atomic force microscopy (AFM) lies in the ultra-precise scanning between the tip and sample, which is enabled by nanopositioners. State-of-the-art AFMs generate the scanning motion using direct-drive nanopositioners, possessing either long range or high bandwidth, but not both. Here we show that with a triple-phase controller, the high-bandwidth (up to 363 Hz) nano-precision scanning can also be performed with a typical stick-slip nanopositioner. More importantly, by leveraging the displacement accumulation in the stepping mode, the same system achieved a 3 mm × 3 mm XY working range, 1-2 orders of magnitude larger than those direct-drive nanopositioners with a similar bandwidth. We further developed a versatile stick-slip AFM and demonstrated high-line-rate AFM imaging at 40 Hz over millimeter-scale areas. This work expands the functional scope of stick-slip nanopositioners, traditionally limited to static nanopositioning or long-range coarse positioning, and offers a cross-scale, high-bandwidth solution for next-generation AFMs. The authors demonstrate that with appropriate control, a typical stick-slip nanopositioner can simultaneously deliver nanometer precision, macroscale range, and hundreds-of-hertz resonance frequency, enabling cross-scale, high-bandwidth atomic force microscopy.