Microcantilever motion detection is a useful tool for the characterization of the physical, chemical and biological properties of materials. In the past, different approaches have been proposed and tested to enhance the behavior, size and simplicity of microcantilever motion detectors. In this paper, a new approach to measure microcantilever motion with nanometric resolution is presented. The proposed approach is based on the concept of mechanically-modulated optical feedback interferometry, a technique that has shown displacement measurement capabilities well within the nanometric scale and that, due to its size, compactness and low cost, may be a suitable choice for measuring nanometric motions in cantilever-like sensors. It will be shown that the sensor, in its current state of development, is capable of following a cantilever sinusoidal trajectory at different sets of frequencies ranging up to 200 Hz and peak to peak amplitudes up to λ / 2 with experimental resolutions in the λ / 100 range.
Keywords: atomic force microscopy; displacement measurement; nanometric resolution; optical feedback interferometry.