Optical Heterodyne Force Microscopy

Kumano, N. and Inagaki, K. and Kolosov, Oleg and Wright, O. B. (1998) Optical Heterodyne Force Microscopy. In: Ultrasonics Symposium, 1998. Proceedings., 1998 IEEE. IEEE, SENDAI, pp. 1269-1272. ISBN 0-7803-4096-5

Abstract

We present a new technique, Optical Heterodyne Force Microscopy, that allows local probing of photothermally-induced ultrasonic vibrations of a sample surface. We demonstrate with images of a sample of highly-oriented pyrolytic graphite obtained at megahertz optical modulation frequencies that lateral resolution of surface and subsurface variations in thermal properties can be achieved on nanometer scales.