Frictional imaging in a scanning near-field optical/atomic-force microscope by a thin step etched optical fiber probe

Abstract

Use of a thin step etched optical fiber probe in a scanning near-field optical/atomic-force microscope (SNOM/AFM) produced frictional imaging. The probe was fabricated by the etching of an optical fiber to decrease its diameter and sharpen the tip end with a HF solution and by irradiating a CO2 laser beam to bend the tip. The spring constant of the thin probe is 100 times smaller than that of a conventional optical fiber probe, which allows the probe to be used as a contact AFM mode and in frictional imaging.

Imaging of various surface properties of fluorescently labelled phospholipid Langmuir–Blodgett films with a combined scanning probe microscope

“…In this paper, we present results of phase separation of a single‐component system of 1,2‐dihexadecanoyl‐ sn ‐glycero‐3‐phospho‐[ N ‐(4‐nitrobenz)‐2‐oxa‐1,3‐diazolyl]ethanolamine (DPPE‐NBD) in which a liquid‐condensed (LC) phase co‐exists with a liquid‐expanded (LE) phase (Ivanov et al ., 1997). Domain formation in the co‐existence region was studied using a newly developed combined scanning probe microscope (SPM) which permits the acquisition of some surface information, such as surface potentials, together with morphology by using a thin‐step etched optical fibre probe (Muramatsu et al ., 1997; Fujihira et al ., 1998; Muramatsu et al ., 1998).…”

Friction and Molecular Deformation in the Tensile Regime

“…As mentioned above, the JKR model also predicts the relationship between load and displacement, which yielded a value of E 1 8 GPa. If we assume n 1 0.4 as for most materials, and use the ͑E 2 , n 2 ͒ of glass [14], we obtain K 11 GPa. With this value of K in the extensions to Eq.…”

“…At full attenuation of the lateral motion (1.0 in Fig. 2), the shear force is equal to the driving force [13] A piezo k tip ഠ 18 nN, where k tip 150 nN͞nm is the spring constant of the tip [14]. The substrate is a gold film on silicon upon which we adsorb densely packed, self-assembled alkanethiol monolayers, by exposure to 10 23 molar thiol solutions in ethanol for 24 hours [3].…”

Measurement of photo‐patterned surface potential of Alq3 thin films by Kelvin‐force microscope together with near‐field optical stimulation

“…Optical fiber probes (SII NanoTechnology, Inc., slim bent probe) [6,7] were used for this purpose. The fiber probes had a thin and bent part at one end, with 30-40 µm in diameter, which mechanically vibrates to work as a cantilever.…”