SpringTable & Force Measurement Analysis

A calibrated spring instead of a load cell#

The STFMA package measures force in-situ in an SEM without dedicated force-sensing hardware — it borrows the microscope’s own resolving power instead. A SpringTable of known, engraved spring constant (from 10 N/m to 1000 N/m, its length running from 88 mm down to 35 mm as the constant rises) is deflected by a measured distance while the SEM records images. Because the table’s construction confines its motion to a single dimension, each amount of deflection maps to exactly one force, with no ambiguity to resolve afterwards.

Batch-processed, seconds after the run#

The Force Measurement Analysis software reads the header information from that image series, detects the deflection of both substrate and sample, and convolutes the two into a force–distance curve — a few mouse-clicks after the experiment, not a separate calibration run. Forces from 10 nN up to 50 mN are accessible this way, at a resolution up to 1:1000 that scales directly with the SEM’s own. The package sees regular use in nanoindentation, nanoforging, tensile testing and MEMS analysis.

See the SpringTable in action — talk to an application engineer about force measurement on your samples.