Category: News

High resolution imaging of amorphous glass surfaces in liquid

Inspired by Kristen M. Burson et al.’s “Resolving amorphous solid-liquid interfaces by atomic force microscopy”, Applied Physics Letters 108, 201602 (2016); http://aip.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1063/1.4949556, the scans below were made by Dr. Roger Proksch of Asylum Research using a NanoWorld Arrow UHF AFM probe and an Asylum Cypher Atomic Force Microscope.

Figure 1. Topography images of disordered lattice imaged at an amplitude setpoint of 2 nm. a) 10nm scan and b) 5nm scan. Both images clearly demonstrate sub-nm amorphous glass surface.
Figure 1. Topography images of disordered lattice imaged at an amplitude setpoint of 2 nm. a) 10nm scan and b) 5nm scan. Both images clearly demonstrate sub-nm amorphous glass surface.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 2. a) Surface topography and b) tip-sample stiffness of a region of the glass sample imaged using AMFM stiffness mapping. 10 nm scan
Figure 2. a) Surface topography and b) tip-sample stiffness of a region of the glass sample imaged using AMFM stiffness mapping. 10 nm scan

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

Using blueDrive and the NanoWorld Arrow UHF AFM tip, it was also possible to simultaneously map the topography and tip-sample stiffness using AM-FM mode (Figure 2). Like Burson et al., a disordered-appearing surface, with length scales similar to those reported in that paper could be seen. Interestingly, these structures were visible with slightly different resolutions with every attempt made. This is a testament to the low noise of the Cypher AFM and to the reliable sharpness of the Arrow UHF cantilevers.

Courtesy of Dr. Roger Proksch, Asylum Research, an Oxford Instruments Company.

#afmprobes #afmtips #atomicforcemicroscopy #AFM

 

Ferroelectric Domain Studies of Patterned (001) BiFeO3 by Angle-Resolved Piezoresponse Force Microscopy

Figure 1 from "Ferroelectric Domain Studies of Patterned (001) BiFeO 3 by Angle- Resolved Piezoresponse Force Microscopy": Patterned mesas are separated from the continuous film by lithography, as shown in the AFM topography image. (b) Schematic drawing of the atomic structure of BFO with angle-resolved polarization models. The Fe (red sphere) atom can be displaced towards twelve possible polarization orientations with respect to its centrosymmetric position. (c) AR-PFM domain map of a 1.2 × 1.2 μm2 area of unpatterned BFO film, corresponding to the black dashed area in (a). (d) The area distribution of each polarization variant according to angle relative to the [100] direction. (e) The average area of stable and meta-stable polarization variants.
Figure 1 from Seungbum Hong et al. “Ferroelectric Domain Studies of
Patterned (001) BiFeO3 by Angle-Resolved Piezoresponse Force Microscopy”:
Patterned mesas are separated from the continuous film by lithography, as shown in the AFM topography image.
(b) Schematic drawing of the atomic structure of BFO with angle-resolved polarization models. The Fe (red sphere) atom can be displaced towards twelve possible polarization orientations with respect to its centrosymmetric position. (c) AR-PFM domain map of a 1.2 × 1.2 μm2 area of unpatterned BFO film, corresponding to the black dashed area in (a). (d) The area distribution of each polarization variant according to angle relative to the [100] direction. (e) The average area of stable and meta-stable polarization variants.
NanoWorld EFM PtIr coated probes were used for the PFM measurements mentioned in this brand new publication on ferroelectric domain imaging of patterned BFO thin films in Scientific Reports.
Congratulations to the authors!
 #afmprobes #atomicforcemicroscopy #afmtips #AFM

Bumsoo Kim, Frank P. Barrows, Yogesh Sharma, Ram S. Katiyar, Charudatta Phatak, Amanda K. Petford-Long, Seokwoo Jeon, Seungbum Hong
Scientific Reports (2018) 8:20, DOI:10.1038/s41598-017-18482-9
For the full article please follow this external link:

 

Open Access
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this
article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not per-
mitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/