Most common scanning probe

There are different types of scanning optical microscopes here one is interested only in the most common type. In these microscopes the light emitted by the sample is simply collected by the probe as can be seen in Fig. 28. 

Dip-pen nanolithography (DPN) is a variety of scanning probe lithography (direct-write) developed by Mirkin and coworkers, where components of interest are transferred from an AFM tip to a substrate.201 DPN has been used to pattern a wide variety of materials on surfaces, including small organic molecules (most commonly n-alkanethiols), DNA, nanoparticles, proteins, viruses, and precursors for inorganic thin films. 

The oldest microscopy technique for materials analysis was optical microscopy. Even to this day, for feature sizes above 1 pm, this is one of the most popular tools. For smaller features, electron microscopy techniques such as scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) are the tools of choice. A third family of microscopy includes scanning probe tools such as scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). In these relatively recent techniques, sample preparation concerns are of minor importance compared to other problems, such as vibration isolation and processing of atomically sharp probes. Therefore, the latter techniques are not discussed here. This chapter is aimed at introducing the user to general specimen preparation steps involved in optical and electron microscopy [3 7], which to date are the most common... 

The application of scanning probe lithography (SPL) has been widespread owing to its ability to modify substrates with very high resolution and ultimate pattern flexibility.96 Dip-pen nanolithography (DPN),97 high contact force AFM,98 and constructive nanolithography99 are some of the most commonly employed techniques, all of which aim to control the position and directed assembly of molecules and nanoparticles. 

Two-dimensional (2-D) crystallites are generally of a lower symmetry than 3-D crystals. The molecules in the 2-D crystallites cannot pack across a center of inversion as they most commonly do in 3-D. By applying modern analytical tools such as scanning tunneling and probe microscopy (STM, SPM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), grazing incidence X-ray diffraction (GIXD), electrospray ionization (ESI) and matrix-assisted laser-... 

The most common analytical techniques used in (S)TEM are EDS and EELS. The combination of STEM and EDS and/or EELS can be used to analyze the specimen locally when stopping the scan process, the electron probe can be positioned at the point of interest. 

Characterizing these many aspects of microstructure is necessary to establish relationships between primary chemical structure, processing, and performance. Currently, the most commonly used methods are scanning probe microscopy techniques such as atomic force microscopy (AFM) or kelvin probe force microscopy... 

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