Noncontact microrheology at acoustic frequencies using frequency-modulated atomic force microscopy

Noncontact atomic force microscopy

No other method has opened the door to progress in nanoscience and nanotechnology as much as the introduction of scanning probe methods did in the 1980s, since they offer a way to visualize the nanoworld. For maximum impact, however, the ability to image and manipulate individual atoms is the key. Initially, scanning tunneling microscopy was the only scanningprobe-based method that was able to ...

Noncontact atomic force microscopy II

In order to visualize the atomic structure of materials in real space, a microscope with sub-nanometer resolution is needed. As such, breaking the resolution limit associated with the wavelength of visible light employed in traditional optical microscopy has been a long-standing dream of scientists around the world. This goal was finally reached in the early 1980s with the invention of the scan...

Noncontact atomic force microscopy III

Intense interest in nanoscale science and technology has been the main driving force behind a large number of outstanding discoveries in the last few decades. It may not be an overstatement to claim that the development of the various scanning probe methods in the 1980s was the main pre-requisite for the fields of nanoscience and nanotechnology to take off and ultimately evolve to their current...

Atomic Force Microscopy at Ultrasonic Frequencies

Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) is a near-field technique to generate high-resolution images of surfaces. A micro-fabricated elastic beam with an integrated sharp sensor tip at its end is scanned over the sample surface. With various dynamic modes, leading to Force Modulation Microscopy [1], Ultrasonic Force Microscopy [2], Atomic Force Acoustic Microscopy (AFAM) [3–5], Microdeformation Microscop...

Self-oscillating mode for frequency modulation noncontact atomic force microscopy