I need to get a detailed 3D profile of an AFM tip that is accurate both near the apex and up to 300nm back from the apex. TEM imaging or blind tip reconstruction from imaging on a sharp e.g. nanocrystalline diamond sample works well for the first 10 nm or so. The probes become axially assymmetric away from the apex so TEM doesn't work there. TGT1 sample reverse imaging does ok but there is significant tip-sample convolution as the image proceeds up the tip shank because the aspect ratio of the TGT1 spikes isn't high enough.
So I have been looking into purchasing carbon nanotube probes to image the probes of interest. Nanotube probes can offer a very small tip radius and of course extremely high aspect ratio across the 200+ nm range I am interested in. Does anyone have advice to offer about using such probes for this task. I was thinking of trying the FN-1 nanotube probe from K-TEK Nano.
I should also mention I would like to use these probes in tapping mode. The resonance frequency of the K-TEK probes is a little low for that, but I can probably still get good resolution by keeping the scanning speed slow.
Dear John Mcclimon , surely the nanotube probe can do the job, but probably you could also get a good image and 3D reconstruction of your AFM tip with a SEM, avoiding the problems faced with TEM, since SEM has a larger depth of field (DoF). Most SEM´s software pakages allow to make a topographic reconstruction of 3D objects, so that you could obtain a fairly detailed characterization of your AFM tip.
On the other hand, may be the nanotube tip could do the job intended for the conventional tip, and probably there the TEM could work.
Hope it helps!
Thanks Manuel. We certainly have SEMs and probably the standard software you describe. In my experience the resolution of AFM tip apexes in SEM images is too low to be useful, but I have little experience in SEM and that little bit was some years ago. I will talk to some of the SEM users to see if this could be a solution.
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