The diameter of kapok fiber is of the order of 30 micrometer-50 micrometer and there are some nanoscaled wrinkles on the surface of micro-scaled fibers.
I have used some physical and chemical treatments to modify the surface of kapok fiber(to increase surface roughness). AFM can be used for imaging at nano-scale order.
How can I study the surface morphology of kapok fiber using AFM??
There are different profilometers for that, for this magnitude optical methods would be an option, e.g. white light interferometry or interference contrast microscopy. It's much faster than AFM, too.
AFM was developed for orders of magnitude which go below the resolution of optical methods, but with a structure much bigger than that there is no point in using anything sophisticated.
Dear Ramyaranjan Das , as pointed by Jürgen Weippert , the AFM would not be the best microscopic technique to study such large diameter fibers, and probably you could get good images with the techniques proposed or some other optical microscopy. A quick search retrieved this nice image of a kapok fiber by diferential interference contrast:
https://www.olympus-lifescience.com/es/microscope-resource/primer/techniques/dic/dicgallery/kapoklarge/
Probably you could get also good results with dark field optical microscopy.
Another good option to study the nanoscale wrinkles on the fiber surface would be the use of SEM. Given that your fibers are organic and dielectric you should cover them with a very thin metallic coat before observation (with some microscopes this metallic coat could be avoided). The scanning electron microscope would let you to study the nanometric wrinkles and your modifications in a fast way.
While looking for some information about the appearance of the kapok fibers I came across with several research works where the AFM was used for studying the external roughness of the fibers. May be you find useful the following links:
Article Unique microstructure of kapok fibers in longitudinal micros...
Article Surface modification of kapok fibers by cold plasma surface treatment
Article Kapok Fiber: Applications
Apparently the waxy coating and the nano-wrinkles are responsible for the hydrophobicity of these fibers.
Hope this helps. Good luck with your research work and thanks for let me know about this kapok fiber, its hollow lumen and properties make it really interesting. Best!
Dear Ramyaranjan Das Ramyaranjan Das, I think this paper can help you to find out how to study roughness and morphology with AFM:
Article AFM studies on surface morphology, topography and texture of...
Heshmat Asgharian The samples in the cited work are much flatter than the fibers in this discussion, so it can't simply be transferred.
In principle, you should be able to measure the topography of the fiber surface by AFM. Actually, the diameter of the fiber is ~ similar in size to human hair which had been probed extensively in the past, as a function of different surface treatments. so, you must be able to do the same. You may try in contact mode first. Semi-contact/tapping mode should be also possible.
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