title: Method of mechanical holding of cantilever chip for tip-scan high-speed atomic force microscope.
abstract: In tip-scan atomic force microscopy (AFM) that scans a cantilever chip in the three dimensions, the chip body is held on the Z-scanner with a holder. However, this holding is not easy for high-speed (HS) AFM because the holder that should have a small mass has to be able to clamp the cantilever chip firmly without deteriorating the Z-scanner's fast performance, and because repeated exchange of cantilever chips should not damage the Z-scanner. This is one of the reasons that tip-scan HS-AFM has not been established, despite its advantages over sample stage-scan HS-AFM. Here, we present a novel method of cantilever chip holding which meets all conditions required for tip-scan HS-AFM. The superior performance of this novel chip holding mechanism is demonstrated by imaging of the α3β3 subcomplex of F1-ATPase in dynamic action at ∼7 frames/s.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, College of Science and Engineering, Kanazawa University, Kakuma-machi, Kanazawa 920-1192, Japan.
authors.forename: Shingo
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Fukuda
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, College of Science and Engineering, Kanazawa University, Kakuma-machi, Kanazawa 920-1192, Japan.
authors.forename: Takayuki
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Uchihashi
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, College of Science and Engineering, Kanazawa University, Kakuma-machi, Kanazawa 920-1192, Japan.
authors.forename: Toshio
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ando
mesh_terms: D004867:Equipment Design; D018625:Microscopy, Atomic Force / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods*; D006180:Proton-Translocating ATPases / Q000737:chemistry
chemical_list: D006180:Proton-Translocating ATPases