ACHARYA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY BENGALURU

Technical Seminar on

“ATOMIC FORCE MICROSCOPY (AFM)”

• GUIDED BY:
• • PRESENTED BY:
Dr. Nagamadhu M
• • SUNIL KUMAR K N
Assistant Professor
• • 1AY18ME428
Department of Mechanical Engineering
 CONTENTS

1. Introduction
2. Principle
3. Working
4. AMF Components
5. Advantages
6. Disadvantages
7. Conclusion
8. References
 Introduction
• Atomic force microscopy (AFM) is a relatively new technique used for the surface
characterization of polymers.
• It iscapable of producing images of a non-conducting polymer surface without
any chemical etching or staining.
• The unique featureof this technique as compared to other microscopy
techniques is that we can study the mechanical properties of thepolymer surface
and it also does not involve the use of electron beam radiation that damages the
polymer surface. This paperdescribes the various applications of atomic force
microscopy like evaluation of mechanical properties, determining the
• chemical composition, studying photo-oxidative degradation of polymers,
measuring the surface adhesion forces, studyingthe thermal phase transitions in
polymers and determining the molecular weight and polydispersity index of
polymer brushes.
• These applications have been elucidated with suitable examples
 PRINCIPLE
Physical probe that raster scans a specimen

Key elements:

1. Probe

2. Detector & Feedback

3. Piezo actuators
 WORKING
Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM)
Signal origin from short-range forces between the tip and the
sample: van der Waals, capillary, electrostatic
1 nm lateral resolution and 0.1 nm depth resolution

Contact mode
Tapping mode
 fee
a ck
db AFM COMPONENTS

Figures from Wikipedia

Cantilevers beam deflection method

Length
thickness

Cantilever dimensions determine how easy to bend it is.

Image quality depends on tip size and shape
Tip
trace

contact point
 Contact Mode AFM
Laser

Detector Z

Tip Cantilever
Simple
X,Y
Not too affected by humidity

Operation in liquid
Feedback: Deflection of cantilever
Damage to soft samples
 Tapping Mode AFM
Detector
Piezoelectric material
drives oscillations

Cantilever oscillates can be driven

at a resonant frequency ~10-500 KHz
10-100nm

The surface acts to damp the resonance

Feedback: Oscillation amplitude

 Advantages
• Imaging hard nanostructures
• Imaging soft nanostructures (proteinfibers,
polymers)
• Imaging single molecules on a flat substrate
• Imaging adherent cells
• AFM provides a three-dimensional surface profile
• AFM modes can work perfectly well in ambient
air or even a liquid environment
 Disadvantages
• Imaging very rough samples
• Imaging something inside another material
• Imaging something that cannot be deposited on a solid
material
• AFM can only image a maximum scanning area of about
150×150 micrometers and a maximum height on the order
of 10–20 micrometers.
• slow rate of scanning during AFM imaging often leads to
thermal drift in the image[50][51][52] making the AFM less suited
for measuring accurate distances between topographical
features on the image.
 Conclusion
• Atomic force microscopy, which was introduced some years ago, attracted the
initial attention of scientists by its capabilities to generate topographic surface
maps with unique resolution and to visualize atomic-scale lattices of crystalline
samples. By learning more about force interactions between a sharp tip and a
sample surface, which are used for probing surfaces in AFM, and about the ways to
control them, considerable progress in AFM applications to polymer materials was
achieved. Today, visualization of single polymer molecules is a routine procedure
for examining macromolecules conformation, molecular weight, and their self-
assembly on flat substrates. AFM studies of crystalline polymers are leading to the
advanced understanding of crystal organization in the nanometer scale. The
spectrum of AFM applications to polymers is not limited by high-resolution imaging
of their surfaces. Imaging of surfaces of heterogeneous polymer systems such as
block copolymers and polymer blends at elevated tip-sample forces allows
compositional mapping of these materials, which is primarily based on differences
of mechanical properties of individual components.
 References
• 1 Binnig G, Rohrer H, Gerber Ch & Weibel E, Surface studies
• by scanning tunneling Microscopy, 49 (1) (1982) 57.
• Young R, Ward J & Scire F, Rev Sci Instrum, 43 (7) (1972)999.
• Binning G, Quate C F & Geber Ch, Phys Rev Lett, 56 (9)(1986)
930.
• Martin Y, Williams C C & Wicramasinghe H K, J ApplPhys, 61(9)
(1987) 4723.
• Revenko I, Probing the Life Sciences with Atomic Force
Microscopy, paper presented in Micro- and Nanostructures of
Biological Systems, Proceedings of 1st Symposium held at the
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg at Halle, (2000) 1-51.
THANK YOU