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Thursday, May 13, 2010

Influence of Noise on Force Measurements

Giovanni Volpe, Laurent Helden, Thomas Brettschneider, Jan Wehr, and Clemens Bechinger

We demonstrate how the ineluctable presence of thermal noise alters the measurement of forces acting on microscopic and nanoscopic objects. We quantify this effect exemplarily for a Brownian particle near a wall subjected to gravitational and electrostatic forces. Our results demonstrate that the force-measurement process is prone to artifacts if the noise is not correctly taken into account.

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