Note: Fast imaging of DNA in atomic force microscopy enabled by a local raster scan algorithm.

Approaches to high-speed atomic force microscopy typically involve some combination of novel mechanical design to increase the physical bandwidth and advanced controllers to take maximum advantage of the physical capabilities. For certain classes of samples, however, imaging time can be reduced on standard instruments by reducing the amount of measurement that is performed to image the sample. One such technique is the local raster scan algorithm, developed for imaging of string-like samples. Here we provide experimental results on the use of this technique to image DNA samples, demonstrating the efficacy of the scheme and illustrating the order-of-magnitude improvement in imaging time that it provides.