Atomic force microscope under high speed feedback control

摘要

An object of the invention is to enable high-speed feedback control by decreasing the mass of a cantilever including an axial driving actuator and eliminate drawbacks caused by the decrease in mass. In a so- called atomic force microscope for observing the surface shape of a sample using a signal corresponding to an interatomic force or the distance between a probe and the sample surface by bringing the probe of a cantilever to the vicinity of the sample surface held by a sample stage and performing two- dimensional scanning with the probe, a piezoelectric film sandwiched between a pair of electrodes is formed on the cantilever, and the piezoelectric film displaces the cantilever in a predetermined direction due to a d.sub.31 inverse piezoelectric effect upon application of a signal voltage to the electrodes.