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In Recent Years

The atomic force microscope (AFM) was invented in 1985 by Gerd Binnig, Christoph Gerber, and Calvin Quate. The AFM uses a very small needle made of materials like diamond or tungsten to lightly touch and map the topography of a surface at the molecular level. It is able to detect variations in the surface of only a few molecules. The AFM has been used to study living cells and observe processes like blood clotting in real-time with movies assembled from images taken every ten seconds. It can also gently remove cell samples without damaging their structure, making it a very delicate dissection tool for studying fragile proteins cells.

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39 views2 pages

In Recent Years

The atomic force microscope (AFM) was invented in 1985 by Gerd Binnig, Christoph Gerber, and Calvin Quate. The AFM uses a very small needle made of materials like diamond or tungsten to lightly touch and map the topography of a surface at the molecular level. It is able to detect variations in the surface of only a few molecules. The AFM has been used to study living cells and observe processes like blood clotting in real-time with movies assembled from images taken every ten seconds. It can also gently remove cell samples without damaging their structure, making it a very delicate dissection tool for studying fragile proteins cells.

Uploaded by

saeedabbashassan
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

In recent years, tremendous advances have been made in the field of microscopy

(the study of microscopes). The electron microscope (which uses a beam of


electrons, or negatively charged particles, to form an enlarged image of an object)
is found in most hospitals and medical laboratories. The research behind the
electron microscope led to Erwin Wilhem Muller's field ion microscope and the
powerful scanning tunneling microscope (STM; developed by Heinrich Rohrer
and Gerd Binnig), two of the most powerful optical tools in the world. In 1985 a
new microscope was added to this list: the atomic force microscope (AFM). The
AFM was invented by Binnig, Christoph Gerber of Zurich, Switzerland, and
Calvin Quate (1923-) from California.

How AFM Works

The AFM uses a tiny needle made of diamond, tungsten (a hard, heavy metallic
element often used in steel production), or silicon (a non-metallic chemical
element found in most natural things). The AFM scans its subjects by lightly
touching them with the needle. In this respect, it uses the subjects like a
phonograph record. The AFM's needle reads the bumps on the subject's surface,
rising as it hits the peaks and dipping as it traces the valleys. Of course, the
topography (map survey) read by the AFM varies by only a few molecules up or
down, so a very sensitive device must be used to detect the needle's rising and
falling. In the original model, Binnig and Gerber used a STM to sense these
movements. Other AFM's use a fine-tuned laser.

The AFM has already been used to study the supermicroscopic structures of
living cells. American physicist Paul Hansma (1946-) and his colleagues at the
University of California, Santa Barbara, are quickly becoming experts in AFM
research. In 1989, this team succeeded in observing the blood-clotting process
within blood cells. Hansma's team presented their findings in a thirty-three-
minute movie, assembled from AFM pictures taken every ten seconds.

Other scientists are utilizing the AFM's ability to remove samples of cells without
harming the cell structure. By adding a bit more force to the scanning needle, the
AFM can scrape cells, making it the world's most delicate dissecting (to take
apart) tool. Scientists hope to apply this method to the study of living cells,
particularly floppy protein cells. The fragility of these cells makes them nearly
impossible to view without distortion.

Read more: Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) - used, blood, body, uses, device,
How AFM Works [Link]
[Link]#ixzz117qEBMpm

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