MRI: Acquisition of an Asylum Cypher ES High-Speed Environmental AFM

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Non-technicalThe acquisition of an Asylum Research Cypher ES high-speed environmental atomic force microscope (AFM) opens up new research avenues for investigators in diverse disciplines spanning biophysics, chemistry, physics, polymers, and materials science. The Cypher ES produces stunning images and movies of microscopic objects and phenomena with exquisite speed, resolution, and sensitivity. The Cypher ES is located in a shared research facility at the University of Chicago, is open to all users and research teams from academia, education, and industry alike, and is configured with advanced features that render it the only system of its kind in the entire Midwest. Accordingly, the Cypher ES not only substantially enhances campus research capabilities, it also provides an invaluable resource for the entire Midwest region research community, and significantly contributes to the national research infrastructure. Furthermore, the Cypher ES improves the quality of student education both in the laboratory and the classroom. When learning to use the instrument, students receive one-on-one comprehensive training that provides vital tools and understanding to advance their research activities and formative growth as young scientists. The instrument is integrated into undergraduate and graduate lab courses. This inclusion supports curriculum development aimed at incorporating research training into the traditional classroom. The Cypher ES is also showcased in microscopy demonstrations at an annual Open House that comprises an important part of science outreach to the general public and the surrounding Chicago Southside neighborhoods.TechnicalThe new generation of fast scan atomic force microscopes (AFMs) offer the ability to resolve dynamical processes with high spatial and temporal resolutions previously unattainable. The Cypher ES high-speed environmental AFM features fast imaging rates, robust thermal stabilization, closed-loop scanning, advanced environmental chambers, and proprietary blueDrive cantilever excitation. Taken together, these features greatly reduce artifacts due to drift and distortion and enhance imaging speed, stability, and resolution. Automatic non-contact calibration of cantilever spring constants allows for precise control of interaction forces (to picoNewton levels) and enables direct nanoscale viscoelastic mechanical property characterization and manipulation of sensitive samples. The inclusion of the Cypher ES as part of an established shared user facility at the University of Chicago enables the activities of a significant number of research groups with expansive interests: including membrane biophysics, cellular biomechanics and actin, bioelectronics, synthetic cellular interfaces, programmable DNA topologies, block co-polymers, hybrid nanoparticle materials, spintronics and quantum materials, 3D supramolecular materials, molecular electronics, and polymer solar cells. The fast scanning speed, high resolution, and exquisite force sensitivity helps image and reveal new types of dynamics in diverse material, chemical, and biophysical systems. The system is the first Cypher ES located in an open-access shared user facility in the Chicago area and is available to all interested on- and off-campus users from academia and industry. Furthermore, it is the only Cypher system with blueDrive in the entire Midwest, and thus has a broad and significant impact on research infrastructure that extends far beyond the University of Chicago. The system will also be included in undergraduate and graduate lab course curricula and serve to provide experience with advanced scanning probe techniques to students in the classroom.