How scanning probe microscopy can be supported by Artificial Intelligence and quantum computing

How scanning probe microscopy can be supported by Artificial Intelligence and quantum computing? Institute of Fundamental Technological Research, Polish Academy of Sciences, Pawinskiego 5B, 02-106 Warsaw, Poland; aprego@ippt.pan.pl Abstract--The impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is expanding rapidly, revolutionizing both science and society. It is applied to practically all areas of life, science, and technology, including materials science, which continuously needs novel tools for effective materials characterization. One of the widely used techniques is scanning probe microscopy (SPM). SPM has fundamentally changed materials engineering, biology, and chemistry by delivering tools for atomic-precision surface mapping. Besides many advantages, it also has some drawbacks, eg. In this paper, we focus on the potential possibilities for supporting SPM-based measurements, putting emphasis on the application of AI-based algorithms, especially Machine Learning-based algorithms as well as quantum computing (QC). It turned out that AI can be helpful in the experimental processes automation in routine operations, the algorithmic search for good sample regions, and shed light on the structure-property relationships. Thus, it contributes to increasing the efficiency and accuracy of optical nanoscopy scanning probes. Moreover, the combination of AIbased algorithms and QC may have a huge potential to increase the practical application of SPM. The limitations of the AI-QC-based approach were also discussed. Finally, we outline a research path for the improvement of AI-QC-powered SPM. I. INTRODUCTION scanning near field optical microscopy (SNOM) are universal tools for materials' surface characterization. SPM enables to obtain a high-resolution 3D surface profile in a nondestructive measurement.