Influence of Noise on Force Measurements

TL;DR

This paper investigates how thermal noise impacts force measurements at microscopic scales, showing that neglecting noise can lead to artifacts and inaccuracies in force detection.

Contribution

It provides a quantitative analysis of thermal noise effects on force measurements for microscopic particles, highlighting the importance of accounting for noise to avoid artifacts.

Findings

Thermal noise significantly affects force measurements at microscopic scales.

Neglecting noise can introduce measurement artifacts.

Proper noise consideration improves measurement accuracy.

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.