Spiral scanning method for atomic force microscopy.

A spiral scanning method is proposed for atomic force microscopy with thoroughgoing analysis and implementation. Comparing with the traditional line-by-line scanning method, the spiral scanning method demonstrates higher imaging speed, minor image distortion, and lower acceleration, which can damage the piezoelectric scanner. Employing the spiral scanning method to replace the line-by-line scanning method, the experiment shows that the time to complete an imaging cycle can be reduced from 800 s to 314 s without sacrificing the image resolution.