Scanning Probe Microscopy for Materials Research

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w:\awards\awards96\num.doc 9622169 Hansma This project will advance the state-of-the-art in Atomic Force Microscopy, AFM, for materials research. Specifically, work is proposed to design and fabricate new cantilevers down to the size range of 2 microns wide and 4 microns long together with the new AFMs that will be required to use them. These new cantilevers will make it possible to achieve resonant frequencies of over a mega-Hertz for cantilevers gentle enough to use on a wide range of materials including soft biomaterials. This will require spring constants of order 0.1 N/m, which can be achieved with metallic cantilevers of order 50 nm thick. These new cantilevers and AFMs will be used for imaging the motion of individual protein molecules during the process of biochemical reaction leading biomaterial products such as RNA. %%% This project will advance the state-of-the-art in Atomic Force Microscopy, AFM. Specifically, work is proposed to build the next generation of AFMs and to demonstrate their advantages for materials research. The United States currently leads the world in the production of commercial AFMs. This success is based, in part, on previous NSF support, which lead to prototypes that are the basis of that current generation of AFMs. The next generation of AFMs will use cantilevers that are less than one-tenth the size used currently. This grant will fund work on the development of both these cantilevers and the new AFMs to use them. These new AFMs will be faster, gentler and have higher resolution than current AFMs. ***