The mechanical Q-factor of an AFM cantilever immersed in fluid is reduced to a small value (ca. 3) owing to viscous damping. Thus, a large driving force is needed to excite the cantilever into bending motion in fluid. There are two common methods for exciting cantilevers for dynamic force microscopy in fluids, illustrated in Figure 1. Fig. la illustrates acoustic excitation in which a piezoelectric transducer displaces the base of the cantilever, causing bending motion of the cantilever when the driving frequency is near to a bending resonance of the cantilever. Fig. lb shows magnetic excitation. In magnetic excitation, a magnetic field is used to cause bending of a magnetic cantilever either through magnetostriction or MXB forces.

Acoustic excitation has the highest amplitude at mechanical resonances of the cantilever housing, with the result that the response is dominated by these sharp features,Fig. 2a. In contrast, the response to magnetic excitation is intrinsic to the cantilever, Fig. 2b. Thus, magnetic excitation permits the cantilever to be driven over a wide range of frequencies. This is important for calibration of the amplitude and for experiments involving time and concentration dependence in tip-sample interactions, e.g., anti-body recognition imaging.