Simulation of fluctuation and dissipation in dynamic force microscopy

We have simulated three possible effects of the driving force fluctuation of the cantilever, fluctuation of the surface location and contribution of an additional dissipation due to the sample, with the hope to identify effective methods of improvement of the achievable resolution during a dynamic force microscopy experiment. This study is performed through numerical simulations of the approach–retract curves. We find that in the case of soft materials, the driving force fluctuation has only a small effect on the amplitude of the cantilever oscillations, while surface fluctuation can markedly decrease the maximum amplitude. We also show that dissipation has a larger effect on the phase of oscillator than on its amplitude.