Mapping surface elastic properties of stiff and compliant materials on the nanoscale using ultrasonic force microscopy

Year: 2000

Authors: Dinelli F., Castell M.R., Ritchie D.A., Mason N.J., Briggs G.A.D., Kolosov O.V.

Autors Affiliation: Department of Materials, University of Oxford, Oxford, 0X1 3PH, United Kingdom; Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom; Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Madingley Road, Cambridge, CB3 OHE, United Kingdom; University of Washington, Benson Hall, PO Box 351750, Seattle, WA, 98195, United States

Abstract: The increasing production of nano-devices and nano-composite materials has prompted the development of new instruments to probe smaller and smaller volumes. Regarding mechanical properties in particular, modified atomic force microscopes using force modulation at frequencies below the cantilever resonance have been successfully employed to investigate relatively compliant materials such as bio-materials and polymers but have shown limitations to highly stiff materials. The alternative approach of ultrasonic force microscopy (UFM) uses sample vibration at frequencies far above the cantilever primary resonance, exploiting the inertial stiffness of an atomic force microscopy cantilever and detection of ultrasonic vibration via nonlinearity of the tip-surface force interaction. In this paper we demonstrate that UFM can discriminate elastic properties of materials ranging from quite stiff to relatively compliant with a lateral resolution of a few nanometres and with high sensitivity to the elastic modulus. Furthermore a phenomenon of ultrasonically induced friction reduction permits imaging of fragile samples otherwise swept away in conventional contact mode atomic force microscopes. The possible influence of adhesive properties also has been analysed and criteria for distinguishing elastic and adhesive contributions have been established. We also explore another promising application of UFM for detection of nanoscale subsurface delamination.

Journal/Review: PHILOSOPHICAL MAGAZINE A: PHYSICS OF CONDENSED MATTER, STRUCTURE, DEFECTS AND MECHANICAL PROPERTIES

Volume: 80 (10)      Pages from: 2299  to: 2323

More Information: ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: The authors would like to thank Hazel Assender for providing the PMMA-rubber inclusions sample, Delphine Gourdon for providing the LB film sample, Nobue Takeda for providing the carbon fibre sample, Barry Derham for providing the protein sample and Holger Norenberg and Arthur Every for collaboration on the permeation through glass-polymer nanocomposites. The authors particularly wish to express their thanks to Nancy Burnham for very helpful comments on the manuscript which greatly helped the improvement of this paper. F.D. would like to thank AFAM CEC network for financial support. We thank The Paul Instrument Fund and EPSRC (GR/L02234) for support for the development of the UFM. O.V.K. would like to thank Wolfson College, Oxford for the continuing backing of UFM research.
KeyWords: Ultrasonic force microscopy (UFM); Microscopy cantilever; Films; Friction; Hardness; Superlattices; S; Adhesion; Stiffness; Surface properties
DOI: 10.1080/01418610008216474

Citations: 72
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