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Updated: Jun 12, 2026

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Published on: February 28, 2019
Influence of noise on force measurements
Giovanni Volpe1, Laurent Helden, Thomas Brettschneider
1Max-Planck-Institut für Metallforschung, Heisenbergstrasse 3, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany. g.volpe@physik.uni-stuttgart.de
Abstract:
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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