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Getting surface roughness of a microsphere mounted on a cantilever

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SamRosenthal posted on Fri, Aug 5 2011 4:36 PM

Hello all,

 

I am conducting an experiment that has a hollow microsphere coated with a metal mounted onto a cantilever.  I would like to measure the roughness of the metal on the microsphere.  I know there are ways to characterize the tip shape based on the image it produces when imaging a known surface.  Is there a way to do the same with roughness?

 

That is, is it possible to run my metal coated microsphere tip over some surface and get a measurement of the microsphere's roughness?

 

Any help appreciated! 

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Answered (Not Verified) Ang Li replied on Fri, Aug 5 2011 11:08 PM
Suggested by Ang Li

Hi, Sam,

In principle, you can have an AFM tip fixed on the substrate and scan over it using your microsphere tip, the image you get will reflect the surface of the microsphere and you just follow standard procedure to measure the roughness. The merit of this method is you can use different tips of varied sharpness to test the roughness you are interested in. Alternatively you can scan over some spikes with known geometry such as the sample in this link: http://www.ntmdt-tips.com/catalog/gratings/afm_cal/products/TGT1.html, you can compare between different microspheres if that's your objective.

LA

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