Note: Guaranteed collocated multimode control of an atomic force microscope cantilever using on-chip piezoelectric actuation and sensing.

The quality (Q) factor is an important parameter of the resonance of the microcantilever as it determines both imaging bandwidth and force sensitivity. The ability to control the Q factor of multiple modes is believed to be of great benefit for atomic force microscopy techniques involving multiple eigenmodes. In this paper, we propose a novel cantilever design employing multiple piezoelectric transducers which are used for separated actuation and sensing, leading to guaranteed collocation of the first eight eigenmodes up to 3 MHz. The design minimizes the feedthrough usually observed with these systems by incorporating a guard trace on the cantilever chip. As a result, a multimode Q controller is demonstrated to be able to modify the quality factor of the first two eigenmodes over up to four orders of magnitude without sacrificing robust stability.