Control of an atomic force microscopy probe during nano-manipulation via the sliding mode method

Nowadays, designing a reliable controller for an atomic force microscope (afm) during themanipulation process is a main issue, since the tip can jump over the target nanoparticle and, thus, theprocess can fail. this study aims to design a sliding mode controller (smc) as a robust chattering-freecontroller to push nano-particles on the substrate. the first control purpose is positioning the microcantilever tip at a desired trajectory by the control input force, which can be exerted on the microcantilever in the y direction by an actuator located at its base. the second control target is the micro-positioning stage in x, y directions. the simulation results indicate that not only are the proposedcontrollers robust to external disturbances and nonlinearities, such as deflection of the afm tip, but arechattering free smc laws that are able to make the desired variable state to track a specified trajectoryduring a nano-scale manipulation.