FORCE MICROSCOPY, NANOCHEMISTRY AND NANOFABRICATION

Scanning probe microscopy (SPM), in particular atomic force microscopy (AFM), is a key tool in nanoscience and nanotechnology because of its ability to image at sub-10 nm resolution a wide variety of surfaces ranging from biomolecules to integrated circuits. Furthermore, the performance of the instrument is not compromised by the surrounding medium. High resolution images are achieved in air, liquid or vacuum. A force microscope can be easily transformed into a modification tool by varying the relevant tip-surface interaction. This process has given rise to a large variety of atomic and nanometer-scale modification approaches. Those approaches involve the interaction of a sharp probe with a local region of the sample surface and the variation of one or several parameters. Mechanical, thermal, electrostatic and chemical interactions, or some combinations among them, are exploited to modify molecules, nanostructures or surfaces with probe microscopes (Fig. 1). In the process, a variety of functional nanoscale patterns, data storage applications and nanomechanical and nanoelectronic devices have been developed. The scanning probe microscopy modification and manipulation approaches range from the sophisticated control of attractive van der Waals forces to move atoms to the use of the AFM tip as a knife to