all-metal Pt tips from RMN for conductive AFM

Alessandro Podestà posted on Thu, Apr 6 2017 8:13 AM

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Dear all,

is anybody using the all-platinum conductive tips fom RMN for conductive AFM/current measurements ?

Can you please comment on the stability, imaging  and electric performance of these tips? Their geometry is definitely not standard and I have found contradictory reports here and there.

I have tried several different models of metal-coated tips, as well as diamond-coated tips, but they  all present stability  issues due to wear and detachment of the conductive coating, sooner or later, also when used in peak force tapping mode.

All-diamond conductive tips are really good, definitely superior, but still too expensive.

In particular, I would like you to comment on the possibility of using the RMN tips in PFT. I see that the maximum frequency of the tips sold by Bruker is 20 kHz, which is a bit too low for PFT, at least because on the Multimode I am bound to ramp at 2 or 4 kHz. There is also a model with higher frequency but it is ultra-stiff (k=250 N/m), probably too much (someone reported that the tip apex can bend upon high load).

Thank you and best regards,

Alessandro

Alessandro Podestà, PhD
Dept. of Physics and CIMAINA,
Università degli Studi di Milano
via Celoria 16 - 20133 MILANO, Italy
E-mail: alessandro.podesta@mi.infn.it
Web: http://www.mi.infn.it/~podesta/
Res.ID: http://www.researcherid.com/rid/E-6568-2010
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4169-6679