An Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) is a mechanical microscope in which the sample is probed by a very sharp tip. AFM allows measuring the sample topography with (sub-) nanometer resolution. As in AFM the sample is probed point by point, AFM imaging is a relatively slow process, which limits the applicability of AFM in fields where high throughput is important.

In AFM de sample is scanned in the lateral plane by use of a piezoelectric scanning stage. The lateral scanning speed is limited by the weakly damped resonances of the scanning stage, which may cause strong oscillations when excited. In this research a cost efficient method is developed to dampen the resonances of the scanning stage, resulting in a 30 times faster lateral scanning motion.

During scanning the force between the tip and the sample is measured and controlled in a feedback loop to prevent damage of the tip and the sample. Moreover, this feedbackloop provides an estimate of the sample topography via a topography estimator. In this research an approach is presented for integrated design of the feedback controller and topography estimator. This approach explicitly addresses the uncertainty in the dynamical behavior of the instrument. It is shown that due to the uncertainty in the dynamical behavior of the instrument, a design trade-off has to be made between the speed and the accuracy of AFM instruments.