title: High-speed atomic force microscopy for observing dynamic biomolecular processes.
abstract: The atomic force microscope (AFM) is unique in its capability to capture high-resolution images of biological samples in liquids. This capability will become more valuable to biological sciences if AFM additionally acquires an ability of high-speed imaging, because 'direct and real-time visualization' is a straightforward and powerful means to understand biomolecular processes. With conventional AFMs, it takes more than a minute to capture an image, while biomolecular processes generally occur on a millisecond timescale or less. In order to fill this large gap, various efforts have been carried out in the past decade. Here, we review these past efforts, describe the current state of the capability and limitations of high-speed AFM, and discuss possibilities that may break the limitations and lead to the development of a truly useful high-speed AFM for biological sciences.
authors: Department of Physics, Kanazawa University, Kanazawa 920-1192, Japan. tando@kenroku.kanazawa-u.ac.jp
authors: Toshio
authors: T
authors: Ando
authors: Takayuki
authors: T
authors: Uchihashi
authors: Noriyuki
authors: N
authors: Kodera
authors: Daisuke
authors: D
authors: Yamamoto
authors: Masaaki
authors: M
authors: Taniguchi
authors: Atsushi
authors: A
authors: Miyagi
authors: Hayato
authors: H
authors: Yamashita
mesh_terms: D004581:Electronics; D018625:Microscopy, Atomic Force / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods* / Q000639:trends; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D008967:Molecular Biology / Q000379:methods*; D044367:Phase Transition; D013997:Time Factors