Design, fabrication, and characterization of kinetic-inductive force sensors for scanning probe applications

• August K. Roos,
• Ermes Scarano,
• Elisabet K. Arvidsson,
• Erik Holmgren and
• David B. Haviland

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2024, 15, 242–255, doi:10.3762/bjnano.15.23

• different radii to achieve a total tip height in the range of 1–2 μm. This conical structure gives added rigidity to lateral forces while scanning. We form a sharp tip at the apex of the cone by exposing a circular area with a diameter of 10 nm, which is smaller than the nominal electron-beam spot size, and

Enhanced feedback performance in off-resonance AFM modes through pulse train sampling

• Mustafa Kangül,
• Navid Asmari,
• Santiago H. Andany,
• Marcos Penedo and
• Georg E. Fantner

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2024, 15, 134–143, doi:10.3762/bjnano.15.13

• reads the deflection of the cantilever and keeps the applied tip–sample vertical force at a fixed setpoint value by adjusting the voltage applied to a Z axis nano-positioner. While this AFM mode achieves high precision in controlling vertical forces, the high lateral forces applied while scanning limits

• mode, resulting in increased lateral forces. Therefore, a trade-off between the scan speed and lateral force needs to be considered. The bandwidth of the Z actuator is the other factor that limits the achievable improvement with the pulse sampling method. To fully benefit from multiple closed-loop

A cantilever-based, ultrahigh-vacuum, low-temperature scanning probe instrument for multidimensional scanning force microscopy

• Hao Liu,
• Zuned Ahmed,
• Sasa Vranjkovic,
• Manfred Parschau,
• Andrada-Oana Mandru and
• Hans J. Hug

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2022, 13, 1120–1140, doi:10.3762/bjnano.13.95

• cantilever-based AFM offers experimental flexibility by permitting multimodal or multifrequency operations with superior force derivative sensitivities and bandwidths. Our instrument has a sub-picometer gap stability and can simultaneously map not only vertical and lateral forces with atomic-scale resolution

• . We further demonstrate that this instrument can be used for multimodal AFM operation, for example, to simultaneously map vertical and lateral forces and tunneling current signals with atomic resolution. It also permits the measurement of weak forces with high measurement bandwidths permitting the

Temperature and chemical effects on the interfacial energy between a Ga–In–Sn eutectic liquid alloy and nanoscopic asperities

• Yujin Han,
• Pierre-Marie Thebault,
• Corentin Audes,
• Xuelin Wang,
• Haiwoong Park,
• Jian-Zhong Jiang and
• Arnaud Caron

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2022, 13, 817–827, doi:10.3762/bjnano.13.72

• between the eutectic Ga–In–Sn melt and the tips, where large capillary forces would result in a larger apparent topography. We can infer the occurrence of capillary interactions during the sliding of an AFM tip on the surface of the eutectic Ga–In–Sn melt from the traces of the normal and lateral forces

• forward and backward direction by multiplying the height signal with the bending stiffness. We observe a hysteresis for both normal and lateral forces, which indicates a dragging force opposing the sliding motion of the tip. The observation of hysteresis for the lateral force is common on solid surfaces

Fabrication and testing of polymer microneedles for transdermal drug delivery

• Vahid Ebrahiminejad,
• Zahra Faraji Rad,
• Philip D. Prewett and
• Graham J. Davies

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2022, 13, 629–640, doi:10.3762/bjnano.13.55

• ± 0.2% (mean ± standard deviation) (ANOVA, p < 0.001), respectively. The base diameter enlargements indicated excessive lateral forces on the cavity walls compared to longitudinal force along the axis. Figure 4a shows the SEM images of the MN array resin master, and Figure 4b,c shows the Zeonor 1060R

Investigation of electron-induced cross-linking of self-assembled monolayers by scanning tunneling microscopy

• Patrick Stohmann,
• Sascha Koch,
• Yang Yang,
• Christopher David Kaiser,
• Julian Ehrens,
• Jürgen Schnack,
• Niklas Biere,
• Dario Anselmetti,
• Armin Gölzhäuser and
• Xianghui Zhang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2022, 13, 462–471, doi:10.3762/bjnano.13.39

• decreases with height (compression). The effect of secondary electrons was modeled by lateral forces on randomly selected molecules. (4) The model system was then allowed to relax toward an equilibrium structure according to thermostat dynamics (Nosé–Hoover or Langevin) with a temperature that linearly

Determining amplitude and tilt of a lateral force microscopy sensor

• Oliver Gretz,
• Alfred J. Weymouth,
• Thomas Holzmann,
• Korbinian Pürckhauer and
• Franz J. Giessibl

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2021, 12, 517–524, doi:10.3762/bjnano.12.42

• amplitudes of the order of 1 nm is also valid for amplitudes under 100 pm, where we typically acquire high-resolution data. To demonstrate that this method can be applied to more complex systems, calibration data was taken of a CO molecule on Cu(111) with a CO tip. When lateral forces act on the CO molecules

• both with oscillation and without as the CO bends faster than the cantilever moves. At the heights where we performed the amplitude calibration, we did not observe a LFM signal, meaning that the lateral forces were insignificant. Also, the excitation frequency of the frustrated translational mode is in

Application of contact-resonance AFM methods to polymer samples

• Sebastian Friedrich and
• Brunero Cappella

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1714–1727, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.154

• –sample system as a vertical spring ignores lateral forces (and related torsion) and damping [8][26]. The models do not represent satisfactorily the complex situation of a CR measurement on a polymer. In other words, different values of γ for different samples “compensate” for the lack of parameters

• accounting for other factors. In particular, it has been shown that the influence of lateral forces increases with ks and that, when including them in the model, curves α(γ) corresponding to different modes intersect indeed at the same point [26]. However, accounting for anisotropies in the cantilever

• structure, tip mass, plastic deformations, viscoelastic behavior, adhesion, lateral forces, and damping increases significantly the number of free parameters, so that the practical use of such complex models is very limited. The dependence of γ on the sample is a severe limitation for measurements on thin

Design of V-shaped cantilevers for enhanced multifrequency AFM measurements

• Mehrnoosh Damircheli and
• Babak Eslami

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1525–1541, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.135

• lateral forces than rectangular cantilevers [19][20]. Many studies have been carried out order to find the spring constant of V-shaped cantilevers. For example, Albrecht et al. used the parallel beam method to approximate the spring constant of V-shaped cantilevers [21]. Afterwards, Butt and Sader

Protruding hydrogen atoms as markers for the molecular orientation of a metallocene

• Linda Laflör,
• Michael Reichling and
• Philipp Rahe

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1432–1438, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.127

• strongly bonded to the substrate to withstand manipulation due to lateral forces exerted by the approaching tip. (2) The tip atomic arrangement is characterised by a deep minimum of total energy preventing a rearrangement of tip atoms or disintegration if the tip is strained by the interaction with the

Subsurface imaging of flexible circuits via contact resonance atomic force microscopy

• Wenting Wang,
• Chengfu Ma,
• Yuhang Chen,
• Lei Zheng,
• Huarong Liu and
• Jiaru Chu

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1636–1647, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.159

• of tip position on the cantilever, lateral forces and cantilever tilt [14][15][16]. Since the contact resonance is sensitive to the sample’s local mechanical properties, CR-AFM has been employed for characterization of elastic and viscoelastic properties [17][18][19][20]. In addition, mechanically

• position, the cantilever tilt caused by mounting and the effect of lateral forces are all considered [14][15][16]. The elastic interactions between the tip and the sample are modeled with contact stiffnesses in the normal and lateral directions. The damping is neglected because it does not have significant

Nanoscale spatial mapping of mechanical properties through dynamic atomic force microscopy

• Zahra Abooalizadeh,
• Leszek Josef Sudak and
• Philip Egberts

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1332–1347, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.132

• both the lateral force acquired in the forward and reverse scan directions. By observing the difference between the forward and reverse scan lateral forces, the magnitude of the friction can be observed. From the examination of the difference between the forward and reverse lateral forces at the

• identified similarly. Additionally, Figure 3c shows that the lateral force peaks have a more negative value than the values of the lateral forces measured on the terrace in both the forward and reverse scan directions. In accordance with [15], this finding suggests that the UHV environment and baking prior

• lateral forces over the step edges. Results of contact resonance (CR) AFM experiments Figure 4a shows a topographic image of another region on the HOPG surface containing both uncovered and covered steps acquired with tip B. Figure 4b shows the lateral force map acquired in the reverse scan direction. The

Characterization of the microscopic tribological properties of sandfish (Scincus scincus) scales by atomic force microscopy

• Weibin Wu,
• Christian Lutz,
• Simon Mersch,
• Richard Thelen,
• Christian Greiner,
• Guillaume Gomard and
• Hendrik Hölscher

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2618–2627, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.243

• Schwarz and co-workers [17]. The ramp rate of the adhesion measurements was set to 1 µm/s. Microscopic friction was measured by scanning sample surfaces with a scan size of 20 µm × 20 µm and a defined loading force Fload while recording the lateral forces acting on the tip apex. Averaging these values

Recent highlights in nanoscale and mesoscale friction

• Andrea Vanossi,
• Dirk Dietzel,
• Andre Schirmeisen,
• Ernst Meyer,
• Rémy Pawlak,
• Thilo Glatzel,
• Marcin Kisiel,
• Shigeki Kawai and
• Nicola Manini

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1995–2014, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.190

• of the field foreseeable in the near future. Review Controlled nanomovements Friction force microscopy (FFM) is a well-defined AFM operation mode in which tiny lateral forces acting on the tip, as it scans across the surface, are recorded [9]. Atomic forces involving few-atom contacts can provide

• direct information on the crystal structure itself. Particularly when the FFM tip is subject to stick–slip advancement, this mode becomes especially efficient for resolving structural features. By mapping the power dissipated by these lateral forces, FFM can even detect such elusive structures as moiré

• ). The GNR was found to move under quite small lateral forces (10–100 pN), and these forces do not increase systematically with the length of the GNR. This is indeed a transparent case of structural superlubricity, where the incommensurate nature of the contact leads to small lateral forces with a

Friction force microscopy of tribochemistry and interfacial ageing for the SiO_x/Si/Au system

• Christiane Petzold,
• Marcus Koch and
• Roland Bennewitz

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1647–1658, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.157

• ultrahigh vacuum. We measured very low friction forces compared to adhesion forces and found a modulation of lateral forces reflecting the atomic structure of the surfaces. Holding the force-microscopy tip stationary for some time did not lead to an increase in static friction, i.e., no contact ageing was

• ultra-sharp tip is scanned across the surface line by line probing a square frame. Lateral forces acting on the sliding contact are determined as deflection of a cantilever spring holding the tip. Single-asperity contact ageing between silica tip and surface has been directly observed in ambient

• ) (Figure 6b and Figure 6c, respectively). The lateral force loops in Figure 4 provide additional details on how friction developed for the tip–surface pairings. The friction force FF (also given in Figure 3) is calculated from the lateral forces FL measured in forward (FW) and backward (BW) direction as

Scanning speed phenomenon in contact-resonance atomic force microscopy

• Christopher C. Glover,
• Jason P. Killgore and
• Ryan C. Tung

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 945–952, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.87

• has been some mention of scan-speed effects in the literature. Picco et al. [15] reported an apparent decrease in forces applied to the measured sample when using high-speed contact mode AFM versus conventional-speed contact mode AFM. Additionally, they measured the lateral forces as a function of

Coupled molecular and cantilever dynamics model for frequency-modulated atomic force microscopy

• Michael Klocke and
• Dietrich E. Wolf

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 708–720, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.63

• to the increasing lateral forces, and the normal frequency has no discontinuity. This correlated behavior of the frequency shift and the damping rate can be observed in experiments. For a KBr (100) surface we could show that there exist different tip positions, where either one of the two damping

Modeling viscoelasticity through spring–dashpot models in intermittent-contact atomic force microscopy

• Enrique A. López-Guerra and
• Santiago D. Solares

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 2149–2163, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.224

• dynamic method and has been the subject of thorough studies [2][3][4][5][6]. In tapping mode AFM damage or wear of the tip and surface are reduced with respect to contact-mode AFM due to lower friction and lateral forces, which makes it more applicable for imaging soft samples, such as polymers and

Dissipation signals due to lateral tip oscillations in FM-AFM

• Michael Klocke and
• Dietrich E. Wolf

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 2048–2057, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.213

• highest. Due to the boundary-induced distortion of the surface, the maxima at the border of the substrate appear much larger, because in addition to the gradient between the atoms, there is also a displacement in z-direction which leads to higher lateral forces. By choosing a very stiff lateral spring

• dissipation rates of the same order of magnitude. The strength of the dissipation depends on the absolute value of the lateral forces. One, therefore, expects high dissipation rates at step edges. If atomic resolution is achieved, this dissipation mechanism would show two maxima accompanying one maximum in

• the topography signal. The higher the nominal frequency shift is, the closer the tip gets to the surface and lateral forces increase. The Monte-Carlo study showed, that not all conditions have to be met in order to find dissipation rates higher than 0.01 eV per cycle. There is another condition acting

A nanometric cushion for enhancing scratch and wear resistance of hard films

• Katya Gotlib-Vainshtein,
• Olga Girshevitz,
• Chaim N. Sukenik,
• David Barlam and
• Sidney R. Cohen

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1005–1015, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.114

• studies to the nanoscale while providing high-resolution imaging of the damage caused by wear or scratching [29][30][31][32]. The quantitative mechanical measurements require calibration both of the normal and lateral forces. For scratch resistance, only the normal force calibration is necessary

The role of surface corrugation and tip oscillation in single-molecule manipulation with a non-contact atomic force microscope

• Christian Wagner,
• Norman Fournier,
• F. Stefan Tautz and
• Ruslan Temirov

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 202–209, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.22

• of the tip ztip increased after each step by 1 pm. At each step the molecular geometry and the lateral tip position were relaxed, the former by minimizing the net force that acts on each atom in the molecule, the latter by zeroing the lateral forces on the tip. The thus obtained Fz(ztip) was

• because our initial force-field model [6][11] does not reflect the actual measurement as performed with the NC-AFM. To account for this, one has to go beyond the calculation of a sequence of relaxed geometries at increasing ztip and zeroed lateral forces. In reality lateral forces are present. This should

• done by either allowing the lateral coordinate of the tip to change (no lateral forces in the junction are allowed, hence the lower end of the molecule does not slide over the surface) or fixing the lateral coordinate of the tip, thus enforcing molecular sliding if necessary. After each retraction

Exploring the retention properties of CaF₂ nanoparticles as possible additives for dental care application with tapping-mode atomic force microscope in liquid

• Matthias Wasem,
• Joachim Köser,
• Sylvia Hess,
• Enrico Gnecco and
• Ernst Meyer

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 36–43, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.4

• polymers or biomolecules. Compared to contact mode AFM the destructive lateral forces are virtually eliminated in tapping mode as the probing tip has a much lower contact time while mapping the surface, which results in a much more gentle sensing of the investigated surface [1][2]. AM-AFM has the ability

Dynamic nanoindentation by instrumented nanoindentation and force microscopy: a comparative review

• Sidney R. Cohen and
• Estelle Kalfon-Cohen

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2013, 4, 815–833, doi:10.3762/bjnano.4.93

• also widely in the literature [63][64][117]. Lateral forces can arise because of the angle between the cantilever and the sample owing to the instrumental configuration. But this can be compensated for by controlling the angular path of the loading curve [118]. Even with such a correction the

Optimal geometry for a quartz multipurpose SPM sensor

• Julian Stirling

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2013, 4, 370–376, doi:10.3762/bjnano.4.43

• a lateral mode without the need to excite torsional modes. The symmetry allows normal and lateral motion to be completely isolated, even when introducing large tips to tune the dynamic properties to optimal values. Keywords: atomic force microscopy; lateral force microscopy; lateral forces

• component to the motion of the tip apex in the first eigenmode [2]. This lateral component is perpendicular to the torsional eigenmode, thus making it impossible to truly separate the normal and lateral forces. This problem is exacerbated if the tip length is further increased to increase sensitivity to

• lateral forces by reducing the lateral spring constant, as snap to contact is not an issue in the lateral direction. Increasing the ratio of thickness to width reduces the required tip length, but at the expense of introducing normal eigenfrequencies above 1 MHz, pushing torsional eigenfrequencies to

Calculation of the effect of tip geometry on noncontact atomic force microscopy using a qPlus sensor

• Julian Stirling and
• Gordon A. Shaw

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2013, 4, 10–19, doi:10.3762/bjnano.4.2

• lateral component, raising interesting questions for both calibration and force-spectroscopy measurements. Keywords: atomic force microscopy; force spectroscopy; lateral forces; mechanical vibrations; qPlus; Introduction From imaging of individual chemical bonds [1] to subatomic resolution of the

• for tip motion parallel to the cantilever oscillation. However, if lateral forces are present, then these will also affect the frequency shift. Effect on calibration Amplitude calibration in qPlus AFM is usually performed by measuring the z extension needed to maintain a constant value for [10]. As

• with theoretical force measurements [7]. However, the lateral motion has a large effect on any data when lateral forces are present, requiring both careful analysis of experimental results and knowledge of the sensor and tip geometry. (a) Diagram of theoretical model. dax is the distance from the