Applications of state-of-the-art atomic force microscopy methods to the elucidation of the surface and near-surface structure of polymeric solids are described. Contact, tapping, force modulation, frictional force, and other modes of atomic force microscopy are described, and recent results are summarized. Conformational and chain order, crystalline order, polymer crystals, lamellar structures,...

The authors describe a method for athermalization in atomic force microscope (AFM) based force spectroscopy applications using microstructures that thermomechanically match the AFM probes. The method uses a setup where the AFM probe is coupled with the matched structure and the displacements of both structures are read out simultaneously. The matched structure displaces with the AFM probe as te...

Magnetic force microscope ( MFM ) is a powerful technique for mapping the magnetic force gradient above the sample surface. Herein, single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) were used to fabricate MFM probe by dielectrophoresis method which is a reproducible and cost-effective technique. The effect of induced voltage on the deposition manner of carbon nanotubes (CNT) on the atomic force microscope (...

A combined Raman and atomic force microscope (AFM) microscope has been installed at beamline P01, PETRA III, DESY in Hamburg and is now available for all users of this beamline. With this unique setup 57 Fe nuclear resonance scattering and simultaneously performed Raman or Atomic Force Microscopy experiments are possible. Here we report on technical details of this new sample environment and on...

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...

The critical quantity in understanding imaging using an atomic force microscope is the force the sample exerts on the tip. We put forward a simple one-to-one force to water density relationship, explain exactly how it occurs, and in which circumstances it holds. We argue that two wide classes of atomic force microscope (AFM) tip should lead to at least qualitative agreement with our model and r...

Title of Document: SURFACE CHARACTERIZATION OF VISCOELASTIC MATERIALS THROUGH SPECTRAL INTERMITTENT CONTACT ATOMIC FORCE MICROSCOPY Jeffrey Charles Williams, Master of Science, 2012 Directed By: Assistant Professor Santiago Solares Department of Mechanical Engineering The ability to recover material properties at the atomic scale has been the ongoing objective of the Atomic Force Microscope (AF...

The atomic force microscope (AFM) is limited in imaging speed by the bandwidth and dynamic behavior of the actuators and mechanical parts. For high-speed imaging all AFM components have to be optimized in performance. Here, we present improvements of the force sensor, the scanner, the controller, and the data acquisition system. By combining all these improvements, the next generation AFMs will...

The measurement of short-range forces with the atomic force microscope (AFM) typically requires implementation of dynamic techniques to maintain sensitivity and stability. While frequency modulation atomic force microscopy (FM-AFM) is used widely for high-resolution imaging and quantitative force measurements in vacuum, quantitative force measurements using FM-AFM in liquids have proven elusive...

Introduction and Review Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) Spectroscopy is an AFM based technique to measure, and sometimes control the polarity and strength of the interaction between the AFM tip and the sample. Although the tip-sample interaction may be studied in terms of the energy, the quantity that is measured first is always the tip-sample force, and thus the nomenclature: force spectroscopy....