Numerical Simulation of Surface Scanning in an Atomic Force Microscope Environment

Abstract

In this contribution a model for the numerical simulation of an atomic force microscope (AFM) is presented. A challenge of this goal is the treatment of the multiphysics phenomena on the microscopic length-scale. Hence a coupled strategy is required to incorporate the different physically aspects and their interactions. The strategy is embedded in a nonlinear finite element formulation, where the different aspects are tackled by direct and weak coupling.