Abstract
For more than a decade, the non-contact atomic force microscopy has been extensively studied because of its perspective to high resolution innanometer-scale. A microcantilever probe driven near its resonance frequency is utilized as a sensor to detect the interaction force between the tip of the probe and the surface of the confronted sample. By scanning the surface with keeping the interaction force constant, the topography of the surface can be imaged with resolution on molecular or atomic scale without damaging samples. However, it has been recently shown that the microcantilever probe possibly exhibits the dynamic instability including a chaotic motion due to the nonlinear tip-sample interaction force. In this paper, the time delayed feedback control method (Pyragas method) is employed to eliminate the instable motion from the microcantilever probe. The parameter region of stable operation is extended by stabilizing unstable periodic orbits embedded in the chaotic attractor.
