Membrane ion channels regulate key cellular functions and their activity is dependent on their 3D structure. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) images 3D structure of membrane channels placed on a solid substrate. Solid substrate prevents molecular transport through ion channels thus hindering any direct structure-function relationship analysis. Here we designed a ~70 nm nanopore to suspend a membra...

Sidewall roughness measurement is becoming increasingly important in the micro-electromechanical systems and nanoelectronics devices. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) is an emerging technique for sidewall scanning and roughness measurement due to its high resolution, three-dimensional imaging capability and high accuracy. We report an AFM sidewall imaging method with a quartz tuning fork (QTF) for...

Dimensional measurements on nano-objects by atomic force microscopy (AFM) require samples of safely fixed and well individualized particles with a suitable surface-specific particle number on flat and clean substrates. Several known and proven particle preparation methods, i.e., membrane filtration, drying, rinsing, dip coating as well as electrostatic and thermal precipitation, were performed ...

An atomic force microscopy (AFM) based technique is demonstrated for measuring the elastic modulus of individual nanowires/nanotubes aligned on a solid substrate without destructing or manipulating the sample. By simultaneously acquiring the topography and lateral force image of the aligned nanowires in the AFM contacting mode, the elastic modulus of the individual nanowires in the image has be...

Graphene, the crystalline allotrope of Carbon has phenomenal electrical properties and hence a number of application prospects. Multi-Layered Graphene (MLG) has tremendous application prospects as gas sensors. Thermal CVD performed at atmospheric pressure is a very simple and affordable synthesis technique for growing MLG. In this project we characterized Thermal-CVD grown MLG films with the At...

Analysis of specific gene expression in single living cells may become an important technique for cell biology. So far, no method has been available to detect mRNA in living cells without killing or destroying them. We have developed here a novel method to examine gene expression of living cells using an atomic force microscope (AFM). AFM tip was inserted into living cells to extract mRNAs. The...

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) is a modern imaging technique that generates height representations of a sample surface with subnanometer resolution. Since 1986 it has evolved into a versatile tool which also provides maps of elastic and viscoelastic properties. AFM offers the opportunity to image samples with or without treatment in various environments. Aim of this work is a short description o...

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...

Atomic force microscopy (AFM, also called scanning force microscopy) is proving to be a useful technique for imaging DNA. Thus it is important to push the limits of AFM imaging in order to explore both what types of DNA can be reliably imaged and identified and also what substrates and methods of sample preparation are suitable. The following advances in AFM of DNA are presented here. (i) DNA m...

Langmuir–Blodgett technique is utilized to deposit ultrathin films of Au38(SC2H4Ph)24 nanocluster onto solid surfaces such as mica and silicon. The morphologies the transferred at various surface pressures within mono/bi/trilayer regime are studied by atomic force microscopy (AFM). time spent on water before deposition has a decisive effect final ordering nanoclusters network fast AFM, X-ray re...