New Software Offers Intelligent Automation for Atomic Force Microscopes

Asylum Research provides its full-function MFP-3D™ and Cypher™ Atomic Force Microscopes (AFMs) with superior
capabilities, which require no programming to perform advanced imaging and measurements.

For more advanced, automated, and out-of-the-box experiments, Asylum also provides a user-driven programming language called IGOR. While programming can be a daunting task for the novice, our new MacroBuilder interface allows users to easily implement IGOR customisation like a pro – without writing any code – by simply dragging
MacroBuilder ‘Modules’ together to form Macros that can  automate many measurements and analyses and be saved for repeated use. Each Module performs a specific operation, such as moving the tip to a position, collecting thermal data, or displaying the next saved force plot. Automation can range from simple tasks where the user might want to make a sequence of measurements − say take a series of images with different setpoints or a series of force curves  at different positions on a sample − to more sophisticated procedures where the MacroBuilder software makes  intelligent decisions; for example, MacroBuilder can decide to change subsequent measurement routines depending on the outcome of previous experiments. An additional benefit is that automated data acquisition can vastly improve throughput and even increase repeatability by removing arbitrariness from the imaging and measurement process. The options are virtually limitless with over 50 Modules included with the Asylum software and more being actively added. MacroBuilder comes standard in the Asylum Research software at no additional cost to the user. No other AFM
system offers this kind of customisability and automation, another example of the power and flexibility of Asylum
Research AFMs.

Roger Proksch, President of Asylum Research, commented: “MacroBuilder is a major advancement for automating AFM experiments. We expect it will revolutionise the way researchers work by allowing our users to run experiments
completely unattended, including decision-making by the software based on pre-set ‘if-then’ instructions. It has
already made big changes in the way I use our AFMs – I am really excited to see what our users do with it.”