Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Structural And Functional Imaging With Carbon Nanotube Afm Probes, J. H. Hafner, Chin Li Cheung, A. T. Woolley, C. M. Lieber

Barry Chin Li Cheung Publications

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) has great potential as a tool for structural biology, a field in which there is increasing demand to characterize larger and more complex biomolecular systems. However, the poorly characterized silicon and silicon nitride probe tips currently employed in AFM limit its biological applications. Carbon nanotubes represent ideal AFM tip materials due to their small diameter, high aspect ratio, large Young’s modulus, mechanical robustness, well-defined structure, and unique chemical properties. Nanotube probes were first fabricated by manual assembly, but more recent methods based on chemical vapor deposition provide higher resolution probes and are geared towards mass production, …