Optical lever calibration in atomic force microscope with a mechanical lever.

A novel method that uses a small mechanical lever has been developed to directly calibrate the lateral sensitivity of the optical lever in the atomic force microscope (AFM). The mechanical lever can convert the translation into a nanoscale rotation angle with a flexible hinge that provides an accurate conversion between the photodiode voltage output and torsional angle of a cantilever. During the calibration, the cantilever is mounted on a holder attached on the lever, which brings the torsional axis of the cantilever and rotation axis of the lever into line. By making use of its nanomotion on the Z-axis and using an external motion on the barrier, this device can complete the local and full-range lateral sensitivity calibrations of the optical lever without modifying the actual AFM or the cantilevers.