Jose R. Lozano

Enhanced compositional sensitivity in atomic force microscopy by the excitation of the first two flexural modes

The authors demonstrate that the compositional sensitivity of an atomic force microscope is enhanced by the simultaneous excitation of its first two flexural eigenmodes. The coupling of those modes by the nonlinear probe-surface interactions enables to map compositional changes in several conjugated molecular materials with a phase shift sensitivity that is about one order of magnitude higher than the one achieved in amplitude modulation atomic force microscopy.

Bimodal atomic force microscopy imaging of isolated antibodies in air and liquids

We have developed a dynamic atomic force microscopy (AFM) method based on the simultaneous excitation of the first two flexural modes of the cantilever. The instrument, called a bimodal atomic force microscope, allows us to resolve the structural components of antibodies in both monomer and pentameric forms. The instrument operates in both high and low quality factor environments, i.e., air and liquids. We show that under the same experimental conditions, bimodal AFM is more sensitive to compositional changes than amplitude modulation AFM. By using theoretical and numerical methods, we study the material contrast sensitivity as well as the forces applied on the sample during bimodal AFM operation.

Nanomechanical coupling enables detection and imaging of 5?nm superparamagnetic particles in liquid

We demonstrate that a force microscope operated in a bimodal mode enables the imaging and detection of superparamagnetic particles down to 5 nm. The bimodal method exploits the nanomechanical coupling of the excited modes to enhance the sensitivity of the higher mode to detect changes in material properties. The coupling requires the presence of nonlinear forces. Remarkably, bimodal operation enables us to identify changes of slowly varying forces (quasi-linear) in the presence of a stronger nonlinear force. Thus, unambiguous identification of single apoferritin (non-magnetic) and ferritin (magnetic) molecules in air and liquid is accomplished.