The NANOSENSORS screencast on the calibration service for AFM cantilevers has just reached the 1500 views mark.
Accurately determined AFM cantilever properties are very important for quantitative force measurements. Force constant and resonance frequency are determined either by thermal tune, the Sader- or the dimensional method, respectively. Usually, the thermal tune method delivers the most precise values, but suffers from the fact that the AFM tip has to get in contact with the surface to calibrate the photo-detector sensitivity. This procedure may damage or break the AFM tip!
The Characterization of AFM Cantilevers is a service from the NANOSENSORS Special Developments List which can be ordered as add-on to AFM probes of the standard PointProbe®Plus, SuperSharp Silicon and tipless cantilevers product range or special developments (force constant < 1N/m and resonance frequency < 2 MHz) and provides measured Spring Constants, Resonance Frequencies and Quality Factors.
NANOSENSORS™ offers a thermal tune calibration procedure performed by Laser vibrometry. This method is contact free and therefore does no damage the AFM tip, but preserves the original AFM tip quality. To ensure the highest level of accuracy NANOSENSORS™AFM cantilever calibration method is calibrated with a standard, certified by the national German metrology institute.
This service is part of our Special Development List (SDL).
Please have a look at http://www.nanosensors.com/pdf/SpecialDevelopmentsList.pdf or contact us at info(at)nanosensors.com for further information.