Related papers: Mono-stability of sharp tips interacting with surf…
Adsorption of small amphiphilic molecules occurs in various biological and technological processes, sometimes desired, the other times unwanted (e.g., contamination). Surface-active molecules preferentially bind to interfaces and affect…
The quantitative measurement of viscoelasticity of nano-scaleentities is an important goal of nanotechnology research and there is considerable progress with advent of dynamic Atomic Force Microscopy. The hydrodynamics of cantilever, the…
Structured metallic tips are increasingly important for optical spectroscopies such as tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (TERS), with plasmonic resonances frequently cited as a mechanism for electric field enhancement. We probe the local…
Atomic force microscopy is an important tool for characterizing surface acoustic waves, in particular for high frequencies, where the wavelength is too short to be resolved by laser interferometry. A caveat is, that the cantilever…
The distance dependence and atomic-scale contrast observed in nominal contact potential difference (CPD) signals recorded by KPFM on surfaces of insulating and semiconducting samples, have stimulated theoretical attempts to explain such…
Atomic scale friction, an indispensable element of nanotechnology, requires a direct access to, under actual growing shear stress, its successive live phases: from static pinning, to depinning and transient evolution, eventually ushering in…
Capillary forces have been measured by Atomic Force Microscopy in the plate-sphere setup between gold, borosilicate glass, GeSbTe, titanium, and UV irradiated amorphous titaniumdioxide surfaces. The force measurements were performed as a…
An atomic force microscope~(AFM) tip, with a few nm-thick noble metal coating, gives rise to strong electric-field at the near-field of tip apex, i.e. hot spot, when illuminated with a beam of light linearly polarized in the axial…
We review here the physics of capillary condensation of liquids in confined media, with a special regard to the application in nanotechnologies. The thermodynamics of capillary condensation and thin film adsorption are first exposed along…
Surface wettability has a huge influence on its functional properties. For example, to minimize smudging, surfaces should be able to repel oil droplets. To quantify surface wettability, the most common approach is to measure the contact…
Atoms or pairs of ions picked up by probe tips used in dynamic force microscopy (DFM) can be strongly displaced and even hop discontinuously upon approach to the sample surface. The energy barriers for some of those hops are of the right…
Tip functionalization in AFM allows imaging organic nano-structures with sub-molecular resolution. Here, recent progress by using atomically defined copper-oxide tips is discussed. With their outstanding rigidity and elemental selectivity…
Optical binding allows creation of mechanically stable nanoparticle configurations owing to formation of self-consistent optical trapping potentials. While the classical diffraction limit prevents achieving deeply subwavelength…
The analysis of the electronic surface properties of transition metal oxides being key materials for future nanoelectronics requires a direct characterization of the conductivity with highest spatial resolution. Using local conductivity…
Dynamic-mode atomic force microscopy (AFM) in liquid remains complicated due to the strong viscous damping of the cantilever resonance. Here we show that a high-quality resonance (Q>20) can be achieved in aqueous solution by attaching a…
We present a theoretical framework for the dynamic calibration of the higher eigenmode parameters (stiffness and optical lever responsivity) of a cantilever. The method is based on the tip-surface force reconstruction technique and does not…
We study long-range morphological changes in atomic monolayers on solid substrates induced by different types of defects; e.g., by monoatomic steps in the surface, or by the tip of an atomic force microscope (AFM), placed at some distance…
Analogue Hamiltonian simulation (AHS) in photonic systems can be an enticing alternative to direct experimental study of complex Hamiltonian systems as a result of the low cost and high degree of control one can have over the system's…
Capillarity-driven self-assembly at fluidic interfaces offers a scalable route to large, reconfigurable materials. Microscale particles with high horizontal-to-vertical aspect ratios become attractive building blocks for shape-directed…
Scanning probe microscopy (SPM) has been extensively applied to probe interfacial water in many interdisciplinary fields but the disturbance of the probes on the hydrogen-bonding structure of water has remained an intractable problem. Here…