MJ

M.P. James

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Master thesis (2019) - Matthew James, Farbod Alijani, Gerard Verbiest, Urs Staufer, Pierpaolo Belardinelli, Abhilash Chandrashekar
Dynamic Atomic Force Microscopy (dAFM) is an extremely powerful tool for exploring surface topology and nanoscale manipulation and characterization. A feature of dAFM is the existence of highly nonlinear forces between a cantilever tip and sample. One of these forces that plays a large role in operation of AFM is the van der Waals (vdW) force. This force is characterized in part by the Hamaker constant H and cantilever tip radius R. Measuring these two properties quickly and accurately can facilitate further characterization methods in dAFM. This research will focus on creating methods in which H and R can be extracted using the dynamic response of a cantilever. The vdW force was used to extract H by analyzing the softening behavior of Frequency Response Curves (FRCs). Electrostatic forces were used to extract R by applying a simplified Kelvin Probe Force Microscopy (KPFM) technique. The method to extract H was demonstrated numerically, and the method to extract R was proven experimentally and validated using a Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) image. ...