Atomic Force Microscopes for Industrial Applications

 

Increasingly atomic force microscopes are required by companies needing sub micron images and measurements for:

- Product and Process Development

- Process monitoring

- Failure Analysis

- Applied Research

AFMWorkshop microscopes have a low acquisition cost as well as a low cost of ownership. Operators of our microscopes are not AFM experts and have educational backgrounds ranging from technicians to Ph.D. Scientists.

Most of our industrial customers have little or no AFM training. Learning to operate our AFMs takes less than two days, and after installations, our technical staff is always prepared to give additional training and provide technical support.

 

 

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Application Notes:

Automobile

The automotive industry continually develops advanced materials to overcome the challenges it faces in making safer, more fuel efficient automotives that are less dependent on fossil fuels. Scientific research already shows many automotive-related applications of AFM. It is clear that AFM is an indispensable tool in many aspects of automotive material development and in the future, AFM may be required for advanced manufacturing.

Process

Atomic Force Microscopes are essential for process development and control applications in advanced technology industries including data storage, semiconductor, advanced material, polymer and photonics. Atomic force microscopy can be a cost-effective technique to evaluate samples for process development, and/or to control a process.

Optics

Atomic Force Microscopes (AFMs) offer substantially better horizontal and vertical resolution than optical and stylus profilers. For this reason, AFMs are ideal for the analysis of materials used in the photonics industry.

Pharmaceutical

Traditional nanoscale imaging techniques such as electron microscopy provide high resolution images at the nanoscale level, but they generally require painstaking sample preparation, perform imaging in a vacuum, and give a 2D image of the surface as an output. Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) can readily image any surface in an ambient condition and provide 3D topography of the surface. Moreover, AFM allows measuring other properties of the surface, such as elasticity and adhesiveness, which are relevant to pharmaceutical applications. Current scientific literature is consistently studded with pharma-related applications of AFM. The data lead us to claim that AFM deserves a space in the R&D toolbox of pharmaceutical industry game-changers.

Food and Agriculture

In this document, we present Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) that stands out as a unique tool to fulfill the promise of nanotechnology in the food & agriculture industry. The unmatched potential of the tool in the nanoscale analysis and characterization of the structure of food systems and the technologies used in the industry justifies the timely investment in this device.

Polymer

AFM is a powerful method for imaging polymers, polymer blends, and polymer composites with nanometer lateral resolution. For polymer applications, the AFM now resides alongside optical microscopy and electron microscopy (SEM – scanning electron microscopy and TEM – transmission electron microscopy) as essential tools for characterization.