Single-pass Kelvin force microscopy and dC/dZ measurements in the intermittent contact: applications to polymer materials

• Sergei Magonov and
• John Alexander

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 15–27, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.2

• corresponding to the transition to the intermittent contact regime. The topography image recorded in the non-contact mode is practically featureless. At the conditions near the transition, it may be possible to detect weak cross-talk patterns, which are caused by the long-distance electrostatic interactions

• sample for KFM studies. The topography and surface potential images of this sample show its surface domain structure presented by different patterns (see Figure 5A). This finding suggests that the material is actually a partial solid solution. A comparison of these images shows that there is no a cross

• -talk between the topography and potential measurements. The surface potential contrast in the images at different magnifications shows four levels of contrast with the 200 mV span. These changes are close to the difference of surface potentials of Sn and Bi (~0.2 V). We found that sample preparation

Defects in oxide surfaces studied by atomic force and scanning tunneling microscopy

• Thomas König,
• Georg H. Simon,
• Lars Heinke,
• Leonid Lichtenstein and
• Markus Heyde

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 1–14, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.1

• setup, one prong of the tuning fork is glued onto the carrier. A Pt0.9Ir0.1 wire, 250 μm in diameter, is attached to the other prong as a tip. The use of a non-conducting glue electrically insulates the tip from the tuning fork and prevents cross talk. Due to the fixed prong and the additional mass of

• -AFM or STM, the other channel can always be co-recorded. Great care was taken to ensure that both channels, NC-AFM and STM, were electrically separated from each other in order to prevent cross talk. The great advantage of this setup is the simultaneous data acquisition of the frequency shift and the