With increasing efforts to rationally design heterogeneous composite materials and a vast library of polymer chemistries and nanoscale building blocks to choose from, characterization methods are needed that map properties at highest spatial resolution. Microphase separations and distribution of additives and fillers affect critical bulk properties in applications from structural materials to organic photovoltaics. To address these characterization needs, the Innova and Dimension Edge provide a full suite of nanomechanical and –electrical modes ranging from phase imaging and force spectroscopy to piezo-response force microscopy, conductive AFM, and Kelvin probe force microscopy, combined with design for highest spatial resolution, achieving atomic resolution with ease.

AFM based nanoscale electrical characterization is well established for semiconductor R&D and FA where scanning capacitance can provide maps of active carrier density and conductive AFM can probe device connectivity and gate oxide breakdown characteristics. Nanoscale electrical properties also play a key role in research areas ranging from graphene to conductive polymers where the most prominent AFM electrical modes are conductive AFM, Kelvin probe force microscopy (KPFM), and electric force microscopy (EFM). Bruker’s Innova and Dimension Edge offer a full suite of electrical modes, leveraging Bruker’s patented LiftMode to enable electric field gradient mapping with EFM, more sensitive KPFM workfunction mapping, and artifact free conductivity mapping with Dark-Lift conductive AFM.

AFM and Raman spectroscopy provide highly complementary information. Where AFM excels at providing highest resolution surface structure and nanomechanical and –electrical property information, the vibrational spectroscopic signature revealed in a Raman spectrum can identify chemistry and crystallography (or graphene electronic structure) in a manner that is both, label-free and nondestructive. Beyond the benefits of complementarity, the combination of AFM and Raman spectroscopy can facilitate tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (TERS), bringing Raman spatial resolution into the nanoscale. As ultra-stable research AFM with hardware and software AFM-Raman integration, Innova-IRIS is an ideal platform for AFM-Raman and TERS.

As high resolution surface probe capable of working in situ inside liquids, AFM can address biological samples ranging from single biomolecules, to isolated membranes, to whole live cells. While studies of live cells can show cell response to external stimuli, AFM investigations of isolated membranes reveal phase segregations and have even provided molecular level detail structure and bonding information on e.g. bacterio rhodopsin. Tapping mode in situ AFM imaging and thermal-tune calibrated force spectroscopy of individual DNA and protein molecules can elucidate secondary structure and the potential energy landscape governing unbinding forces.