Energy dissipation in atomic force microscopy and atomic loss processes

Atomic scale dissipation measurements with a linearized, ultrasmall amplitude atomic force microscope capable of measuring dissipation at chosen, fixed separations were presented. The dc hysteresis associated with nanoscale plasticity in the contact regime was observed. It was shown that the dynamic dissipation is of the order of a few 10-100 meV per cycle in the non-contact regime. Analyzation revealed that the hysteresis energy loss was found to be 1 order of magnitude higher for a silicon surface than for copper.