Many nanofabrication methods based on scanning probe microscopy have been developed during the last decades. Local anodic oxidation (LAO) is one of such methods: Upon application of an electric field between tip and surface under ambient conditions, oxide patterning with nanometer-scale resolution can be performed with good control of dimensions and placement. LAO through the non-contact mode o...

A hybrid atomic force microscopic (AFM) measurement system combined with white light scanning interferometry for micro/nanometer dimensional measurement is developed. The system is based on a high precision large-range positioning platform with nanometer accuracy on which a white light scanning interferometric module and an AFM head are built. A compact AFM head is developed using a self-sensin...

The chemical modification of nanocrystalline diamond (NCD) atomic force microscope (AFM) tips was investigated and used for chemical force spectroscopy (CFS). In contrast to common chemical modification routes for gold or silicon AFM tips, this method creates stable C–C bonding to attach functional moieties to the NCD tip. There have been no previous studies reporting the chemical functionaliza...

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) is a specialised form of scanning probe microscopy, which was invented by Binnig and colleagues in 1986. Since then, AFM has been increasingly used to study biomedical problems. Because of its high resolution, AFM has been used to examine the topography or shape of surfaces, such as during the molecular imaging of proteins. This, combined with the ability to operat...

Atomic force microscopy or scanning tunneling microscopy (AFM/STM) is a powerful single molecule tool for the visualization of biological materials at sub-nanometer resolution. AFM is versatile because it can directly measure physical properties due to its sensitivity at picoNewton force scales, thus enabling dissection of molecular forces. STM/AFM has been considered revolutionary since its di...

The attractive/repulsive relationship between superconductivity and magnetic ordering has fascinated the condensed matter physics community for a century. In the early days, magnetic impurities doped into a superconductor were found to quickly suppress superconductivity. Later, a variety of systems, such as cuprates, heavy fermions, and Fe pnictides, showed superconductivity in a narrow region ...

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) has emerged as the only technique capable of real-time imaging of the surface of a living cell at nano-resolution. Since AFM provides the advantage of directly observing living biological cells in their native environment, this technique has found many applications in pharmacology, biotechnology, microbiology, structural and molecular biology, genetics and other bi...

BACKGROUND The purpose of this study was to investigate the genesis of the Austin Flint murmur using Doppler and echocardiographic imaging. METHODS AND RESULTS A total of 51 patients having significant aortic insufficiency and an anatomically normal mitral valve were evaluated. They were divided into two groups; 30 patients had an audible Austin Flint murmur (AFM+) and 21 did not (AFM-). All ...

MOTIVATION Single-molecule force spectroscopy has facilitated the experimental investigation of biomolecular force-coupled kinetics, from which the kinetics at zero force can be extrapolated via explicit theoretical models. The atomic force microscope (AFM) in particular is routinely used to study protein unfolding kinetics, but only rarely protein folding kinetics. The discrepancy arises becau...

Scanning probe microscopy has been widely used to investigate various interactions in microscopic nature. Particularly, conductive atomic force microscopy (C-AFM) can provide local electronic signals conveniently, but the probe resolution of C-AFM has been limited by the tip geometry. Here, we improve the probe resolution greatly by forming an atomic-size metallic filament on a commercial C-AFM...