Active drift compensation applied to nanorod manipulation with an atomic force microscope.

We have developed a simple algorithm to overcome the problem of thermal drift in an atomic force microscope (AFM) operating under ambient conditions. Using our method, we demonstrate that the AFM tip remains above a 5-nm-high and 50-nm-long CdSe nanorod for more than 90 min despite the thermal drift present (6 nm/min). We have applied our drift compensation technique to the AFM manipulation of CdSe colloidal nanorods lying horizontally on a highly oriented pyrolytic graphite surface. Since we have precise control over the position of the AFM tip relative to the nanorod, we can choose to either translate or rotate the rod by changing the location of the tip-rod interaction point.