It is a mechanical-optical laboratory equipment, designed to show forces of order of the nanonewtons, for the determination and appreciation of various extensions of the sample, capable of continuously exploring its appearance by means of a probe or sharp tip of pyramidal or conical shape.
The atomic force microscope (AFM) is one of the most important tools to process topographic projections of matter at nanoscale, where the scanning system reveals the molecular and atomic impulses, acting on a tip located towards the surface of the studied material.
Elements of the Atomic Force Microscope
Piezoelectric elements, which allow small but accurate currents in the electronic control, make possible specific tracking by measuring the electrical potentials, using conductive microlevers.
The integrated force microscope is composed as follows:
- Microlevers: produced, using microfabrication techniques, originally achieved from the microelectronics industry as surface lithography and reactive ion plasma etching (RIE and DRIE stands for Reactive Ion Etching and Deep Reactive Ion Etching). The tips are usually made from steam separations of some material on the lever already manufactured, in which case it is usually a coniform tip, using techniques of anisotropic engraving. This is wrapped by using an engraving solution that deepens the material only or preferably in certain crystallographic directions.
- Bending sensors: currently there are systems to measure the bending of the ribbon, which is explored by means of a laser beam that is reflected on the back of the microlever, and then reaches a photodetector. To this result, most of the AFM microlevers (slats) are made with a gold layer tens of nm thick on the back, to optimize the reflection, to the laser beam.
- Tip: the resolution of the images obtained by AFM, is the sharpness of the tip and has a diamond on pieces of aluminum foil, are shaped tips with radius of curvature and are around 5nm. It acts through various types of domains, to form the images: widening, compression, tip-sample interactions and radius appearance
- Accuracy: the vertical arrows of the instrument are less than 1 nm, and distinguish three-dimensional details on the sample surface, with an amplification of several million times.
Application Methods of the Atomic Force Microscope
In Atomic Force Microscopy, you can work in the following ways:
- Topography in contact mode, air and liquid (measures of surface roughness, height of layers, steps, terraces or the shape or distribution of objects on the surface).
- Topography in tapping mode, in air and in liquid, with the corresponding phase image (measures of the compositional contrast of different materials).
- Mechanical measurements, both in contact and tapping, and in air or liquids (obtaining bending-displacement curves).
- Surface potential measurements, which detect the presence of loads on the sample surface.
- Magnetic force measurements (MFM), which allow us to appreciate magnetic domains that are not visible in the topographic mode.
- Electric force measurements (EFM), on the sample surface.
- Nanoindentation and nanoscratching measures, to obtain information on the hardness of a sample or the adhesion and durability of a film.
Kalstein brand microscope
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