Slashdot Mirror
New High-Speed Nano Imaging Device
Roland Piquepaille writes "Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have built a new nano imaging device which is 100 times faster than current technology. Not only is the 'FIRAT' (Force sensing Integrated Readout and Active Tip) much faster than the current 'AFM' (atomic force microscopy), it also is able to take movies and to simultaneously capture several physical properties of nanostructures, such as stiffness, elasticity or viscosity. In fact, the FIRAT probe, which works like a microphone, could one day replace AFM. One of the researchers commented that 'We've multiplied each of the old capabilities by at least 10, and it has lots of new applications.'"
I need to get out more.
Yet another device my ex-girlfriend can claim she'd need to find my unit.
Thanks a lot, march of scientific progress...
This tagline is umop apisdn.
Unlike the vast majority of science articles I read here on Slashdot, this new device appears to be the real deal, will be in actual use very quickly, and will make a difference in the relevant scientific community.
Most of the articles here are either pseudo-science or random articles with no particular scientific significance but some controversial or funny element.
The major innovation you get by using sound is that your detector can be smaller (i.e. faster) and less reliant on precise optics. This is the double whammy Grail of nano-imaging. From TFA: "For a regular AFM to detect the features of the object, the actuator must be large enough to move the cantilever up and down. The inertia of this large actuator limits the scanning speed of the current AFM. But FIRAT solves this problem by combining the actuator and the probe..." But there seems to be some discrepancy in the article. "Georgia Tech researchers have been able to use FIRAT with a commercial AFM system to produce clear scans of nanoscale features at speeds as high as 60 Hertz (or 60 lines per second)." Is this what they mean by a "movie" which they claim has never been done with AFMs? It's true that commercial AFMs do not achieve this speed, but http://hansmalab.physics.ucsb.edu/index.html/ for example custom builds AFMs to that spec since 2002. The second part that seems misinformed is that FIRAT is not unique in it's use of surface properties and a cantilever-type system. Current AFMs "bounce" off the surface in the same way, interacting well before actual contact (insofar as contact has meaning in the quantum mechanical sense).
So it could help find out Jedi candidates within us?
I work with an AFM, and it's a very tempermental machine. The tips are SO delicate, if you look at them wrong, they break and are useless ($10 down the drain). They can only be used once.
It's a slow process finding the resonance frequency, using the slow piezos to move the tip to the near field, and slowly scanning the area. One of the advantages of AFM is that it can be done on completely wet samples.
There's another technology called NSOM. that does much the same thing. Many NSOMs are custom made. We use a Scanning Electron Microscope to check the tips we make to see if they are suitable. Tips are made by slowly stretching a glass wire inder high temperature until the break, giving you 2 NSOM tips.
Neat stuff.