porous silicon samples were prepared by electrochemical etching method for different etching times. the structural properties of porous silicon (ps) samples were determined from the atomic force microscopy (afm) measurements. the surface mean root square roughness (σ rms) changes as function of porosity were studied, and the influence of etching time on porosity and roughness was studied too. u...

The force sensor is key to the performance of atomic force microscopy (AFM). Nowadays, most atomic force microscopes use micromachined force sensors made from silicon, but piezoelectric quartz sensors are being applied at an increasing rate, mainly in vacuum. These self-sensing force sensors allow a relatively easy upgrade of a scanning tunneling microscope to a combined scanning tunneling/atom...

We have constructed an atomic force microscope enabling one to image the topography of a sample, and to monitor simultaneously ultrasonic surface vibrations in the MHz range. For detection of the distribution of the ultrasonic vibration amplitude, a part of the position-sensing light beam reflected from the cantilever is directed to an external knife-edge detector. Acoustic images taken on the ...

AFM allows the visualization of biological samples under physiological solution conditions, at high spatial resolution. However, captured images are limited to snapshots because it takes at least 30 seconds to capture an image, whereas biological phenomena are highly dynamic. To overcome this limitation, my group has developed high-speed AFM. The dynamic processes and structural dynamics of pro...

In this study AFM technique has been used to observe the degradation of cellulose fibres in paper samples used as substrata for the growth of a filamentous fungus known to be responsible for damage to art works made from or supported on paper. Images obtained from the analysis of artificially deteriorated samples have been used for comparison with topographies obtained by AFM from naturally aff...