Credit: © G.Kuebler/JILA/CU
In an atomic force microscope (AFM), force is measured by a laser beam (yellow in this artist's rendition) bouncing off the diving-board like cantilever. To make an ultrastable AFM, researchers at JILA added two other lasers (green and red) to measure the three dimensional position of both the tip and a reference mark in the sample. These measurements allow researchers to remove drift and vibration in the instrument's measurements caused by environmental factors.