A Novel Detection Method for Acoustic Emission Using a Scanning Probe Microscope

The fracture of the atomic-scale contact should be investigated for understanding the mechanism of the mechanical processing. Using a combination of the scanning probe microscope (SPM) with possible high space resolution and the acoustic emission (AE) with high sensitivity for fracture is one of the possible way of investigating the fracture mechanism. When using the SPM, the AE signal might be detected with receiving the AE wave by the piezoelectric tube scanner of the SPM receiving the AE wave, where by the piezoelectric effect the electric signal due to the AE wave is superimposed on the scan signal. Based on that, in this study, a novel method to detect AE signal from the scan signal is proposed. With this method, without changing the SPM body, the AE could be detected, and a two-dimensional AE source location could be possible by using four divided electrodes of the piezoelectric tube scanner. By a simple experiment using the AE wave simulator, the AE signal seems to be detected by the piezoelectric scanner of the SPM. Also, one of the typical data from the experiment suggests the AE source location might be possible. In the experiment of the indentation using atomic force microscope (AFM), which is one of the SPM, the AE signal is observed reproducibly