A toolchain for open-loop compensation of hysteresis and creep in atomic force microscopes

Any Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) scanner based on piezoelectric ceramics is affected by nonlinear distortions, mainly due to rate-independent hysteresis and rate-dependent creep, two different phenomena often referred to, collectively, as rate-dependent hysteresis. To compensate for these distortions, especially in old or cheap instruments, empirical open-loop compensation techniques are frequently adopted. In this paper, a complete hardware/software toolchain is proposed, for data acquisition, identification of hysteresis and creep models, and real-time open-loop compensation of rate-dependent hysteresis in AFM scanners.