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Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering

On The Electrochemical Etching Of Tips For Scanning Tunneling Microscopy, Nancy Burnham, J. Ibe, P. Bey Jr., S. Brandow, R. Brizzolara, D. Dilella, K. Lee, C. K. Marrian, R. Colton Jun 1990

On The Electrochemical Etching Of Tips For Scanning Tunneling Microscopy, Nancy Burnham, J. Ibe, P. Bey Jr., S. Brandow, R. Brizzolara, D. Dilella, K. Lee, C. K. Marrian, R. Colton

Nancy A. Burnham

The sharpness of tips used in scanning tunneling microscopy(STM) is one factor which affects the resolution of the STM image. In this paper, we report on a direct‐current (dc) drop‐off electrochemicaletching procedure used to sharpen tips for STM. The shape of the tip is dependent on the meniscus which surrounds the wire at the air–electrolyte interface. The sharpness of the tip is related to the tensile strength of the wire and how quickly the electrochemical reaction can be stopped once the wire breaks. We have found that the cutoff time of the etch circuit has a significant effect on the …


Probing The Surface Forces Of Monolayer Films With An Atomic-Force Microscope, Nancy Burnham, Dawn Dominguez, Robert Mowery, Richard Colton Apr 1990

Probing The Surface Forces Of Monolayer Films With An Atomic-Force Microscope, Nancy Burnham, Dawn Dominguez, Robert Mowery, Richard Colton

Nancy A. Burnham

Using an atomic force microscope (AFM), we have studied the attractive and adhesive forces between a cantilever tip and sample surfaces as a function of sample surface energy. The measured forces systematically increased with surface energy. The AFM is very sensitive; changes in the surface forces (i.e., attraction and adhesion) of monolayer covered samples could be clearly discerned when only the surface group of the monolayer film was changed from -CH3 to -CF3.