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Near Contact Mode AFM: Overcoming Surface Fluid Layer In Air And Achieve Ultra-High Resolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2018

Huddee J. Ho*
Affiliation:
TopoMetrix Corporation

Extract

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A major goal of Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) is to achieve nanometer resolution on surface topography, Vibrating cantilever mode (VCM) is an important configuration of an AFU instrument, It was proposed in the first AFM paper.

VCM in ultra-high vacuum (UHV) results in true AFM atomic resolution, which reveals atomic scale surface defects such as a single missing atom in a lattice. However, the VCM operation in air has many difficulties due to the surface contamination on the sample and the AFM tip. The most popular operation modes of the VCM are the non-contact mode and the Tapping mode. Both of these have limited lateral resolution in air.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Microscopy Society of America 1998

References

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