2013/06/12 by Luca Costa, Costa, Luca, Mario S. Rodrigues +11
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Force Microscopy Techniques and Applications #Integrated Circuits and Semiconductor Failure Analysis #Mechanical and Optical Resonators #Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) #cond-mat.mes-hall
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1306.2775
5 pages, 4 figures
arxiv created 2013/06/12 · openalex publication_date 2013/06/12 · arxiv updated 2013/06/13 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) conventional static force curves and Force Feedback Microscopy (FFM) force curves acquired with the same cantilever at the solid/air and solid/liquid interfaces are here compared. The capability of the FFM to avoid the jump to contact leads to the complete and direct measurement of the interaction force curve, including the attractive short-range van der Waals and chemical contributions. Attractive force gradients five times higher than the lever stiffness do not affect the stability of the FFM static feedback loop. The feedback loop keeps the total force acting on the AFM tip equal to zero, allowing the use of soft cantilevers as force transducers to increase the instrumental sensitivity. The attractive interactions due to the nucleation of a capillary bridge at the native oxide silicon/air interface or due to a DLVO interaction at the mica/deionized water interface have been measured. This set up, suitable for measuring directly and quantitatively interfacial forces, can be exported to a SFA (Surface Force Apparatus).