Fig. 2

Deformation reconstruction using the single-nanodiamond (ND) method. a Atomic force microscopy (AFM) image of a typical polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) surface with an ND located at the center (the origin). The red dots represent the indentation locations of the AFM tip, starting with #1 and ending with #92. b The rotation of the ND plot as arrows for the displacements of the ND from the 92 indentation positions. The size of the arrows represents the magnitude of the rotation angles χ (scale bar shown on the right), and the direction is the rotation axes projected to the x–y plane. c The polar angle θ_r and the azimuthal angle ϕ_r of the rotation axes of the ND as functions of θ for the 92 indentation positions. The gray line in the upper graph is θ_r = 90° and in the lower graph is ϕ_r = θ−90°. d The reconstructed surface of the PDMS film upon an AFM tip indentation at the center (the origin). The vertical error bars in c are the fitting errors