Teaching & Learning Packages Viewing and downloading resources About the TLPs Terms of use Feedback Credits Print this page

Atomic Force Microscopy

This teaching and learning package provides a brief introduction to atomic force microscopy (AFM), some of the ways it is commonly used and some of the problems faced.

Topographic AFM image of a collagen fibril.

Aims
Before you start
Introduction
Tip Surface Interaction
Modes of Operation
The Scanner
Tip and Cantilever
Feedback
Scanner Related Artefacts
Tip Related Artefacts
Other Artefacts
Summary
Questions
Going further

Begin

The 3D rendering above shows gallium nitride islands grown on a sapphire substrate, imaged using atomic force microscopy

First created: August 2009. Converted to HTML5 February 2021.