Imaging Cellular and Viral Materials with Small Cantilevers Developed for High Speed Atomic Force Microscopy

High speed atomic force microscopy (AFM) holds the promise of investigating dynamic systems in real time with single molecule resolution. With the big push towards understanding more complex systems such as cell mechanics or cell-cell and cell-virus interactions, a tool is required that can extract information about these processes in real time in a physiological environment. Atomic force microscopy has been successfully used for investigations of many biological systems and materials in real life conditions, but taking AFM images takes too long to follow many biologically relevant processes. Therefore, attempts have been made to develop high speed AFM by reengineering all the components of an AFM system and much progress has been made. To be useful for investigations of biological systems however, it is often essential to keep imaging forces low in order to get good image quality and not to damage the sample. In this paper we will discuss new small AFM cantilevers we've developed to combine high resonance frequencies for faster imaging with low spring constants for gentle imaging.