New AI Breaks Fundamental Limitations of Atomic Force Microscopy

Atomic force microscopy, or AFM, is a widely used technique that can quantitatively map material surfaces in three dimensions. However, the precision of AFM is constrained by the size of the microscope’s probe. A novel artificial intelligence technique has been developed to surpass this restriction, enabling microscopes to achieve higher resolution in material analysis.

The deep learning algorithm developed by researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is trained to remove the effects of the probe’s width from AFM microscope images. As reported in the journal Nano Letters, the algorithm surpasses other methods in giving the first true three-dimensional surface profiles at resolutions below the width of the microscope probe tip.