  Ultrasonic AFM may improve fabrication technologies on the nanometer scale.
In the presence of ultrasonic vibration, hard surfaces can be indented and
scratched with the tip of a soft cantilever, due to its inertia. Ultrasound
reduces or even eliminates friction, and hence modifies the
tip-nanoparticle-surface interactions in AFM manipulation. The subsurface
sensitivity of the technique makes feasible the purposed manipulation of
subsurface nanoscale features by ultrasonic actuation.
