A model for impact dynamics and its application to frequency analysis of tapping-mode atomic force microscopes

The problem of two-body impact dynamics is considered providing a general class of models based on hysteresis functions. The structure of the model and its flexibility allows for a direct application of harmonic balance techniques for the analysis of periodic impacts when the forces involved are repulsive, repulsive-attractive and dissipative. An application to the oscillation analysis of a tapping-mode atomic force microscope (AFM) provides useful analytical results, which give a qualitative explanation of a number of known experimental phenomena.