title: Advanced tip design for liquid phase vibration mode atomic force microscopy.
abstract: We have fabricated polymer tips for atomic force microscopy in order to elucidate the effects of tip length and shape on cantilever vibration damping in liquids. The vibration damping is investigated by measuring the vibration amplitude of cantilevers as a function of tip-sample distance. The cantilever with a short tip provides a higher damping effect over long tip-sample distances. When the vibration amplitude was rescaled to show the effect of the cantilever width on oscillation damping, the vibration amplitude of cantilevers with various tip lengths was similarly obtained in a long distance range over 50 microm. This similarity is explained by an acoustic damping model in which an acoustic wave is generated by the cantilever. Finally, the results indicate a cantilever with a sufficiently long tip compared to the cantilever width can dramatically reduce the long-range damping effect in a liquid environment.
authors.affiliation: School of Bionics, Tokyo University of Technology, 1404-1 Katakura, Hachioji, Tokyo 192-0982, Japan.
authors.forename: Hiroshi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Muramatsu
authors.forename: Yuji
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yamamoto
authors.forename: Masatsugu
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Shigeno
authors.forename: Yoshiharu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Shirakawabe
authors.forename: Akira
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Inoue
authors.forename: Woo-Sik
authors.initials: WS
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Seung Jin
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Sang-Mok
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Chang
authors.forename: Jong Min
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Kim
mesh_terms: D018625:Microscopy, Atomic Force / Q000379:methods*; D014732:Vibration