Closed Fluid Cell with Liquid-Sealing Mechanism for Stable and Flexible Operation of Liquid-Environment Atomic Force Microscopy

概要

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We have developed a closed fluid cell using the liquid-sealing mechanism for liquid-environment atomic force microscopy (AFM). In the developed cell, a liquid material is used for sealing, which prevents the evaporation of the imaging solution and hence provides a high stability in the measurements. In addition, the sealing liquid suppresses the transmission of the vibrations induced by the scanner, which enables atomic-scale imaging even with a closed fluid cell. Here, we present the atomic-resolution imaging of mica in liquid using the developed cell. Owing to the flexible structure of the sealing liquid, the mechanism can be integrated into a wide range of existing AFM systems and provides a high flexibility in the XY tip positioning and the sample size. Here, we demonstrate the nanoscale imaging of Cu wiring patterns at different locations in a large sample, where the tip position is moved by more than 1.5 mm without breaking the closed AFM cell.
2013-11-25