Indrieri M, Podestà A, Bongiorno G, Marchesi D, Milani P
CIMaINa and Dipartimento di Fisica, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milano, Italy.
Rev Sci Instrum. 2011 Feb;82(2):023708. doi: 10.1063/1.3553499.
We describe novel approaches for the production and characterization of epoxy- and adhesive-free colloidal probes for atomic force microscopy (AFM). Borosilicate glass microspheres are strongly attached to commercial AFM cantilevers exploiting the capillary adhesion force due to the formation of a water meniscus, and then a thermal annealing of the sphere-cantilever system at a temperature slightly below the softening point of borosilicate glass. Controlling the wettability of the surfaces involved turned out to be a crucial element for the control of surface adhesion and for the implementation of a completely adhesive-free production method of colloidal probes. Moreover, we present a statistical characterization protocol of the probe dimensions and roughness based on the AFM inverse imaging of colloidal probes on spiked gratings. We have assessed the influence of defects of the grating on the characterization of the probe, and discussed the accuracy of our characterization technique in comparison to the methods based on scanning electron or optical microscopy, or on the manual analysis of AFM inverse images.
我们描述了用于原子力显微镜（AFM）的无环氧和无粘合剂胶体探针的生产及表征的新方法。利用由于形成水弯月面而产生的毛细粘附力，将硼硅酸盐玻璃微球牢固地附着在商用AFM悬臂上，然后在略低于硼硅酸盐玻璃软化点的温度下对球 - 悬臂系统进行热退火。结果表明，控制所涉及表面的润湿性是控制表面粘附以及实现完全无粘合剂的胶体探针生产方法的关键因素。此外，我们基于在带尖峰光栅上的胶体探针的AFM反演成像，提出了一种探针尺寸和粗糙度的统计表征方案。我们评估了光栅缺陷对探针表征的影响，并与基于扫描电子显微镜或光学显微镜的方法，或基于AFM反演图像的手动分析方法相比，讨论了我们表征技术的准确性。
