Thin films atomic force microscopy

Roark S E and Rowlen K L 1993 Atomic force microscopy of thin Ag films. Relationship between morphology and optical properties Chem. Phys. Lett. 212 50... 

In this section, the thin-film formation of OPVs is investigated with optical microscopy and X-ray diffraction (XRD). In the case of Oocl-OPV5, this has been supplemented with surface imaging by means of atomic force microscopy. It is demonstrated how an annealing treatment of the films alter deposition influences... 

Kanniainen, T. Lindroos, S. Prohaska, T. Friedbacher, G Leskela, M. Grasserbauer, M. Niinisto, L. 1995. Growth of zinc sulfide thin films with the successive ionic layer adsorption and reaction method as studied by atomic force microscopy./. Mater. Chem. 5 985-9. 

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) is a commonly employed imaging technique for the characterization of the topography of material surfaces. In contrast to other microscopy techniques (e.g., scanning electron microscopy), AFM provides additional quantitative surface depth information and therefore yields a 3D profile of the material surface. AFM is routinely applied for the nanoscale surface characterization of materials and has been previously applied to determine surface heterogeneity of alkylsilane thin films prepared on planar surfaces [74,75,138]. 

The effect on structure of confining block copolymers in thin films has been examined, largely using neutron reflectivity and atomic force microscopy. A number of features that result from the constraint of reduced dimensionality have been reported, such as the observation of islands and holes at the surface... 

Another example of a Pc-based 1-D polymer is that reported by Armstrong and co-workers [158], They prepared a Pc with eight styrene-type polymerizable sites at the end of the peripheral substituents. This molecule forms highly ordered, rod-like aggregates at the air-water interface that can be transferred onto solid supports. Irradiation of the thin films affords polymerization between the olefin moieties of adjacent molecules by photostimulated [2 + 2] cycloaddition. The rod-like Pc macromolecules were conveniently studied by matrix-assisted laser desorp-tion/ionization (MALDI-TOF) spectrometry and atomic force microscopy (ATM), the latter showing rods with lengths up to 290 nm. 

Demonstier-Champagne et al. used atomic force microscopy (AFM) to observe microphase separation within cast films of PS-PMPS-PS/ PS-PMPS block copolymer mixtnre [43] that were nsed to compatibilize a blend of PMPS and PS. The fractnre snrface of blend films with the block copolymer incorporated show a far finer dispersion of particle sizes than those without. Matyjaszewski et al. studied PMPS-PS thin films by SFM (scanning force microscopy) and TEM (transmission electron microscopy) and Fig. 8 shows a TEM picture of a thin section of a film which was prepared by slow evaporation from THE, which is slightly selective for the polystyrene block [73]. 

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