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EuroSciPy 2013

Brussels, Belgium - August 21-24 2013

Dynamic Force Microscopy Simulator

Horacio Andres Vargas Guzman

Abstract

We have ported the multifrequency force microscopy simulations code for point-mass and Euler-Bernoulli models, based in Fortran to an interpreted, modular and object oriented code nature programming language PYTHON [1]. The dForce code creates an intuitive and interactive virtual environment [2] for the different types of force microscope situations. This code breaks up the tip-surface ensemble into easy recognizable sub-systems such as the cantilever model, medium properties, tip and sample features and interaction forces. As a consequence the user of dForce is able to obtain a quick and accurate insight of the experimental data in a variety multifrequency force microscopy ensembles. To gain code portability we have analyzed the Fortran code of established dynamic force microscopy simulations by adapting the early stage data structures of Fortran; including its numeric computational benefits to a highly intuitive code development framework, which makes dForce easy to shape various multifrequency force microscopy situations. This is possible through its ability to integrate rapidly and modularly new simulation scenarios; by managing PYTHON/SCIPY [3] and customized libraries. The need to obtain insight of the images of biomolecules, antibodies and even human cells is a key factor of further developments of dForce. The question of a real time simulator arose form the idea of obtaining the nanomechanical properties of the heterogeneous sample e.g. antibodies on a pixel by pixel basis. To this end we have implemented a bulk cases simulator which creates a simulations database. That database can be easily access while imaging the sample through the experimental parameters used for imaging.

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