Atomic Force Microscopy: From Liquid to Ultra-High Vacuum Environments
by
Maxwell Auditorium
ALBA Synchrotron
Abstract
Scanning Probe Microscopies (SPM), which were developed in the 1980s, have become the most essential instruments to visualize and characterize the surfaces of materials at the nanoscale. Among the SPM techniques, the Atomic Force Microscope (AFM), invented in 1986 [1], is one of the most versatile instruments for the advanced characterization of materials. The AFM can characterize conductive, semiconductor, mineral or biological samples, and operate in various environmental conditions: in ambient, solutions, glove box or ultra-high vacuum [1-4]. In addition, the sensor tip can be physically, chemically or biologically modified, which makes the AFM capable of providing, besides surface morphology, information about the physical-chemical properties of samples. In this talk, we introduce the AFM and its basic operational modes as a function of the working environment, and we present several applications in the fields of biotechnology, electrochemistry and fundamental physics, among others, where this instrument is utilized.
Figure 1. Illustration of an AFM sensor (central panel). The different panels show four examples, in which diverse AFM operation modes are used to image solid-liquid interfaces (top-left), point defects in minerals (top-right), sub-molecular structure of organic compounds (down-left) and stiffness of polymers (bottom-right).
References:
[1] G. Binnig et al., Physical Review Letters 56, 930 (1986).
[2] D. Martin-Jimenez et al., Nature Communications 7, 1 (2016).
[3] Z. Zhang et al., ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces 12, 35132 (2020).
[4] Q. Zhong et al., Nature Chemistry 13, 1133 (2021)
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