Application of various modes of scanning-probe microscopies in polymer systems

Conference · Tue Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1996

OSTI ID:468794

Meier, D J ^[1]

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1. Michigan Molecular Institute, Midland, MI (United States)

The invention of the scanning tunneling microscope (STM) by Binnig and Rohrer in 1982 demonstrated an unparalleled ability to image materials at the subnanometer scale. The invention rapidly lead to an explosion of applications of STM in a wide variety of fields. However, imaging by an STM is essentially limited to materials which are conductive, or could be made conductive, so many materials of interest could not be imaged by STM. This limitation was removed a few years later (1985) by the invention of the atomic force microscope (AFM) by Binnig, Quate and Gerber, in which imaging is based on the response of a soft cantilever beam to the contract forces between an ultra-fine probe tip and a sample. The cantilever/probe systems could be made sensitive enough to enable the AFM to easily resolve atomic or molecular level features. In this talk, the various scanning modes will be described and examples of images from the various modes will be shown. The virtues and limitations of each will be described, particularly as they pertain systems.

• OSTI ID: 468794
• Report Number(s): CONF-960877--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
IMAGES
MICROSCOPY
POLYMERS
SURFACE PROPERTIES
TOPOGRAPHY