Quartz crystal resonator based scanning probe microscopy

Abstract

The piezoelectric quartz crystal resonator is a common electronic device used for a reference clock which has high Q-valued resonance. In this paper, a general description on the quartz crystal resonator based scanning probe microscopy is presented. Most well-known type of the quartz crystal resonator is the tuning fork which has been employed as a force sensor in many different types of the scanning probe microscopy. The most important advantage of the quartz crystal resonator based scanning probe microscopy is high resolution imaging. Furthermore, it has potential to be used at low temperature due to its low power dissipation, compactness, and non-optical detection.