Forums
Bruker Media
Community Media
Bruker AFM Probes
SPM Digest
Application Notes
NanoTheater
Website
中文
Brochures & Datasheets
Publications
Probes Catalog
Events
Manuals & Documentation
Presentations
Guide to AFM Modes
News
Journal Club
Webinars & Video
Nanovations
Other
Hi everyone,
I am using the AFM cantilevers for protein adsorption studies and i believe that the Gel in the sample holding box causing some contamintaion to the cantilevers.
Can anyone suggest a suitable method to remove any contamination caused by the gel ?
thank you so much.
Hi Shanu,
It depends on what contamination you are referring to: if it's carbon-based contaminants, a UV/ozone treatment can help. If it's more grease, you need an organic treatment but this one is more risky in the sense that some organic solvants can contribute to remove the coating.
There is an interesting Langmuir paper mentioning that problem. I forgot the year but the main author is Jan-Willem Weener (working for smartTip). If you type that name under ScienceDirect, you should be able to find it.
Best,
Alex.
Thanks Alex for your reply i will take a look in to that paper.
My Question was very generic one i guess as i was looking to clean the fresh tips (from the box), my understanding is that PDMS box in which they normally came start decomposing after some time (once the box is opened) and they tend to contaminate (possibly) the cantilevers, now that mass attachement might be in pico grams but it can create problems especially if u r using the resonance frequency.
I use the UV route to clean that after following the discussion here in the forum and on Linkedin and that certainly seems to improve the results.
Thank you once again for your reply
You are right, the mass attachment must be in that order. Actually I very hardly heard from people complaining about that contamination problem. Jan-Willem Weener was one of them; this is one I mentioned the paper. From my side, I never found that critical even when the box had been open for several months.
I agree that contamination might be a problem especially for Hi Res imaging but I don't think it can siginficantly modify the resonance frequency (the added mass is negligible).
All the best,
Hi Alex,
I'd be interested in looking into that paper by Weener, but I cannot find any publication by him in Langmuir. Maybe you meant another journal? Or if you have the exact reference, then I'd appreciate that as well.
Thanks,
Janne
Dear Janne,
I just found the right reference but figured out that JW Weener was not in the authorship. He just presented that paper in one of his ppt presentations. Here is the correct ref (sorry for the misleading info!):
"Organic and inorganic contamination on commercial AFM cantilevers" by Lo et al., Langmuir 1999, 15, 6522-6526.