Atomic force microscopy local mechanical properties probe

Among the many microscopy-based techniques for the study of biomolecular interactions on surfaces, scanning probe microscopies, and especially the atomic force microscopies (AFM), are the most used because of their molecular and sub-molecular level resolution and in situ imaging capability. Apart from the high resolution mapping of siuface nanotopographies, AFM can be used for the quantification and visualisation of the distribution of chemistry, hydrophobicity and local mechanical properties on surfaces, and for the fabrication of nanostructmes on surfaces. 

There was, however, one topic which was not included in the first edition, which has undergone substantial development in the intervening years. It could have been foreseen in 1986 a paper was presented at the IEEE Ultrasonics Symposium entitled Ultrasonic pin scanning microscope a new approach to ultrasonic microscopy (Zieniuk and Latuszek 1986,1987). With the advent of atomic force microscopy, it proved possible to combine the nanometre-scale spatial resolution of scanning probe microscopy with the sensitivity to mechanical properties of acoustic microscopy. The technique became known as ultrasonic force microscopy, and has been joined by cognate techniques such as atomic force acoustic microscopy, scanning local-acceleration microscopy, and heterodyne force microscopy. 

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