PicoScript Software Scripting Interface for Enhanced Control of AFM Systems

Overview

Keysight Technologies, Inc. PicoScript is an optional scripting interface package that greatly enhances the capabilities of Keysight PicoView, the imaging and analysis software that controls all Keysight AFM systems. Scripts can be written to automate tasks and create custom experiments.

PicoScript, which is integrated with PicoView software, comes with an application programming interface (API). Scripts can be developed utilizing Python, C/C++, and MathWorks MATLAB. PicoScript also provides virtual instruments (VIs) for National Instruments LabVIEW. PicoScript gives users access to all major function classes (e.g., set/get parameters), as well as to special functions, status functions, and more than 400 commands (e.g., display) for writing scripts. Online help and examples are provided for each function; generating scripts that combine multiple functions is easy. Moreover, applications can be combined into libraries for shared use.

Startup and Support

PicoScript is easy to install, easy to master, and comes with all of the documentation necessary to prepare Keysight AFM system users for script writing. Keysight provides simple training videos to get users up and running quickly. Online contextual help makes hands-on learning a breeze.

Keysight recommends and supports the use of Python, an object-oriented high-level programming language that is both intuitive and easy to use. A considerable amount of free documentation is available on the internet to help users learn this programming language.

Practical Advantages

State-of-the-art Keysight AFM systems, which include the 5100, 5420, 5500, 5600LS, and 6000ILM, offer users versatile platform modularity, industry-leading environmental and temperature control capabilities, and an expansive range of high-precision imaging modes. Using PicoScript to automate controls for a Keysight AFM system facilitates increased productivity and permits more advanced experiments to be developed. Furthermore, the Python programming language can be used to develop new routines for data analysis, enabling even greater lexibility.

PicoScript can also provide status updates remotely to users, allowing them to concentrate on other tasks. All of these capabilities serve to reduce the turnaround time between the conceptual development of an experiment and the acquisition of hard results that can be used to solve a problem or help focus further efforts to do so.