The Agilent 5500 Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) provides nanoscale resolution, 3D images with minimal sample preparation. Imaging can be performed in ambient air, in fluids, in vacuum or various gas atmospheres and a variety of different modes are available.

With contact mode Atomic Force Microscopy, a sharp tip at the free end of a cantilever (the “probe”) is brought into contact with the sample surface. The tip interacts with the surface, causing the cantilever to bend. A laser spot is reflected from the cantilever onto a position-sensitive photodiode detector. As the cantilever bends, the position of the laser spot changes. The resulting signal from the detector is the Deflection, in volts. The difference between the Deflection value and the user-specified Set Point is called the “error signal.”

Tapping mode (AC mode) allows soft materials to be imaged. In this mode, the cantilever is driven to oscillate, typically in sinusoidal motion, at or near one of its resonance frequencies. The complex tip-sample forces cause changes in the amplitude, phase and resonance frequency of the oscillating cantilever. Thus, topography, amplitude and phase can be collected simultaneously. The phase and amplitude images may highlight physical properties that are not readily discernible in the topographic map.  

Technical Specifications

Operating modes: Contact, Acoustic AC, phase imaging, LFM, Force modulation, Adhesion force imaging, CFM, MFM and EFM

System supports 2 scanners :- Scan range up to 90 μm x 90 μm x 7 μm (Noise level XY< 5Å, Z <0.5Å RMS).

Scan range up to 9 μm x 9 μm x 2 μm (Noise level XY< 1Å, Z <0.2Å RMS). (They have independent x, -x, y, -y, z piezos for accurate, linearised flat scanning)

Resolution: 0.01 - 0.1 nm

Supports samples dimensions up to 50 mm x 50 mm x 20 mm (X x Y x Z).

Control Software (PicoView) can simultaneously display real-time image & post processed data with image resolution up to 4096 x 4096 pixels

DLL (dynamically linked library) for VB, LabView, and more

Post processing software (PicoImage) available for advanced image analysis

 Agilent AFM in NCLA

3-D image of laser induced periodic surface structures (LIPSS) on semiconductor material (LIPSS has a periodicity of approximately 800 nm)

AFM image of laser grooved biomedical fibre