Soft Tapping Mode AFM Probes

HQ AFM tip close-up

Typical radius of uncoated AFM tip
8 nm
Full AFM tip cone angle*
40°
Total AFM tip height
12 - 18 µm
AFM probe material
n-type silicon
AFM probe bulk resistivity
0.01 - 0.025 Ohm·cm

*The full cone angle may be less than 40° at the last 200nm of the AFM tip end.

The HQ:NSC and HQ:XSC AFM probe tips have trihedral shape. The soft tapping mode AFM probes feature AFM cantilevers with medium stiffness and force constants in the range 0.5-16N/m. They are used in tapping mode for imaging relatively soft samples to obtain better phase contrast and reduce surface deformations caused by the tapping AFM tip.

The optional aluminum reflective coating enhances the laser reflectivity of the AFM cantilever by approximately 2.5 times.

There is a range of available AFM cantilever coatings for the tip side and back side. Please check the other catalog categories for coated versions of standard tapping mode AFM probes.

The highly successful HQ series now extends over all AFM probe series with 1,3 and 4 AFM cantilevers.

1 AFM Cantilever Series

3 AFM Cantilever Series

4 AFM Cantilever Series

Application

Most of the routine topography imaging experiments require AFM probes of about 8 to 10nm radius. Using these AFM probes, lateral resolution down to 5nm is attainable for scan size below 1μm. Usually, sharpened silicon etched AFM probes are used for general purpose measurements.

Tapping mode topography image of self-assembled structures of semifluorinated alkanes on silicon (Agilent 5500 AFM). Scan size 350x350nm. Scan height 5nm. The scan is obtained using a soft tapping mode AFM probe. Image courtesy of S. Magonov, Agilent Technologies.