Fully digitally controller for cantilever-based instruments
First Claim
1. A method, comprising:
- receiving a signal from a cantilever part of an atomic force microscope into a digital circuit, where said digital circuit includes both a digital signal processor, and a field programmable gate array, each of said digital signal processor and said field programmable gate array carrying out digital operations on the signal from the cantilever part;
at a first time, carrying out a first digital operation on the signal from the cantilever part in the digital signal processor, and carrying out at least a second digital operation on the signal from the cantilever part in the field programmable gate array;
at a second time, reprogramming operations carried out by the field programmable gate array to create a reprogrammed field programmable gate array circuit and carrying out a changed digital operation on the signal from the cantilever part in the digital signal processor using the reprogrammed field programmable gate array, andbased on one of said digital operations, sending at least a position correcting signal out from the digital circuit to the cantilever part.
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Abstract
A controller for cantilever-based instruments, including atomic force microscopes, molecular force probe instruments, high-resolution profilometers and chemical or biological sensing probes. The controller samples the output of the photo-detector commonly used to detect cantilever deflection in these instruments with a very fast analog/digital converter (ADC). The resulting digitized representation of the output signal is then processed with field programmable gate arrays and digital signal processors without making use of analog electronics. Analog signal processing is inherently noisy while digital calculations are inherently “perfect” in that they do not add any random noise to the measured signal. Processing by field programmable gate arrays and digital signal processors maximizes the flexibility of the controller because it can be varied through programming means, without modification of the controller hardware.
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Citations
17 Claims
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1. A method, comprising:
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receiving a signal from a cantilever part of an atomic force microscope into a digital circuit, where said digital circuit includes both a digital signal processor, and a field programmable gate array, each of said digital signal processor and said field programmable gate array carrying out digital operations on the signal from the cantilever part; at a first time, carrying out a first digital operation on the signal from the cantilever part in the digital signal processor, and carrying out at least a second digital operation on the signal from the cantilever part in the field programmable gate array; at a second time, reprogramming operations carried out by the field programmable gate array to create a reprogrammed field programmable gate array circuit and carrying out a changed digital operation on the signal from the cantilever part in the digital signal processor using the reprogrammed field programmable gate array, and based on one of said digital operations, sending at least a position correcting signal out from the digital circuit to the cantilever part. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
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9. An apparatus, comprising:
a digital circuit, receiving a signal from a cantilever part of an atomic force microscope, and carrying out at least two digital operations to process said signal in said digital circuit, said digital circuit including both of a digital signal processor, and a field programmable gate array, each of said digital signal processor and said field programmable gate array carrying out said digital operations on the signal from the cantilever part, a process reconfiguration part, operating to carry out a first digital operation on the signal from the cantilever part in the digital signal processor and carry out at least a second digital operation on the signal from the cantilever part in the field programmable gate array at a first time, and to reprogram operations carried out by the digital signal processor at a second time to carry out said second digital operation on the signal from the cantilever part in the digital signal processor, and carrying out at least said first digital operation on the signal from the cantilever part in the field programmable gate array at said second time, and based on said digital operations, to send at least a position correcting signal out from the digital circuit to the cantilever part. - View Dependent Claims (10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17)
Specification